Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [126]
Social networking services aren’t constrained by national borders. Facebook has almost 600 million members, with a majority residing outside of the United States. DST already owns or controls most of Russia’s social networks and, with its partners Tencent and Naspers, they dominate social media worldwide. This provides a unique platform for the Russian government to conduct influence operations, intelligence collection, and information warfare. This is due to the unique political environment that exists inside the Russian Federation, where relationships are built upon usefulness and end when that usefulness ends (e.g., Pavlovsky’s recent contract termination by Surkov). A timeline of DST’s recent high-profile investments shows a corresponding government affiliation shortly before or after each one:
May 26, 2009
DST invests US$200M in Facebook. Just days earlier it was announced that Yuri Milner was serving on the Presidential Commission; in November of the same year, Milner led a Ministry of Communications survey of illegal content on RuNET.
April 2010
DST buys ICQ from AOL and receives a US$300M investment from Tencent. In August 2010 Milner served on the Government Commission on High Technology, chaired by Putin.
November 2010
Mail.ru Group’s IPO raises US$1B on the London Stock Exchange. In February 2011 Mail.ru Group CEO Grishin sits on the board of the new League of Internet Safety.
Today, Yuri Milner and DST Global are seeing unparalleled success in Silicon Valley. Every new startup that graduates from the technology incubator Y Combinator receives $150,000 from DST. Traditional VCs have had to revise their term sheets because of DST’s generous deals. A new investment vehicle (DST-Global 2) has been set up for Western investors to take advantage of DST’s successful business model. However, none of the investment prospecti or company biographies that this author has found contain any information about Milner’s activities on behalf of the Russian government, nor his time at Neftyanoi or Menatep, nor how he managed to avoid being investigated when the other principals at both firms were found guilty. Investors and business partners of DST Global and DST Global 2 should be fully informed of the relationship among the company, its officers, and the Russian government, because the Kremlin is certainly interested in them.
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[53] “WWW. It’s Not Just a Virtual Country,” The New Times Online, February 16, 2009,
[54] “Kremlin tears up contract with Pavlovsky think tank,” RIA Novosti, April 27, 2011, http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110427/163737335.html.
[55] Richard Sakwa, “Surkov: dark prince of the Kremlin,” RIA Novosti, April 8, 2011, http://en.rian.ru/valdai_op/20110408/163429757.html.
[56] “Spin Doctor of All Russia. Vladislav Surkov—The Man with a Thousand Faces,” RIA Novosti, March 7, 2011.
[57] Parmy Olson, “The Billionaire Who Friended the Web,” Forbes.com, March 9, 2011, http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/0328/billionaires-11-profile-yuri-milner-billionaire-friended-web.html.
[58] “Personnel changes in the Manatees,” Kommersant, February 11, 1997, 8.
[59] New Trinity Investments is probably the vehicle for Milner’s first investment in NetBridge in 2000 since New Trinity Investment’s listed phone number also tracks to NetBridge.
[60] “Kremlin Ideologist Surkov Reportedly To Meet Bloggers To Plan Internet Strategy,” The New Times Online, February 16, 2009.
[61] Joseph Menn and Charles Clover, “Man in the news: Yuri Milner,” FinancialTimes.com, May 29, 2009, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f81bb0be-4c7d-11de-a6c5-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Z7AyOAEo.