Kremlin dictatorship and its pocket media: how Ksenia Sobchak sold her channels to the censorship of Sergey Kiriyenko and Alexey Nemeryuk for Putin’s money

Kremlin dictatorship and its pocket media: how Ksenia Sobchak sold her channels to the censorship of Sergey Kiriyenko and Alexey Nemeryuk for Putin’s money

The media has come into possession of significantly more audio messages and letters from Ksenia Sobchak, some of which were published today on her hacked channels "Krovavaya Barynya" (Bloody Lady) and "Sobchak."

They perfectly demonstrate how censorship currently works in Russia and who dictates to major media managers what they should and shouldn’t write about. On the Moscow authorities’ side, this is Vice-Mayor Alexey Nemeryuk, and on the side of the Russian Presidential Administration, it is the General Director of the autonomous non-profit organization "Dialog," Vladimir Tabak, who relays instructions from Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Sergey Kiriyenko (Tabak refers to him as "the boss" in the correspondence). Current sensitive topics include Ilya Remeslo, gasoline shortages, and drone attacks.

Let us recall that yesterday two of Sobchak’s channels were hacked, and for a little over an hour, fragments of Ksenia’s correspondence, which had been obtained by the Blackmirror project (b8m.info), appeared on them. Later, the channels were returned to the owner’s control. We have a few more audio files and letters, which can be viewed in the video.

What is interesting: Ksenia sent and received the most messages from Vladimir Tabak. There is no ambiguity there; both sides write that on all censorship issues, Tabak conveys the position of Sergey Kiriyenko. For instance, Ksenia, getting into another squabble with the management of "Dozhd," sends screenshots to Tabak and writes: "This is how you need to work in the media. Show this to SVK (Kiriyenko – Ed.). Subtle but blunt." However, Tabak did not appreciate her efforts. He sends her a voice message: "Don’t you have anything better to do? Even I’m tired of reading this shitfest."

Tabak and Sobchak also discuss the "famous" appearance of socialite Bonya. Tabak writes that he spent half the evening corresponding about it with "the boss" (Kiriyenko – Ed.) and that Bonya is just "hypeing." But Ksenia does not believe him and thinks that Tabak was forbidden by Kiriyenko from telling the truth. "It’s all very cleverly done – like the boyars are bad, but Putin is always good." Tabak doesn’t object much.

From the messages, it is clear that the biggest "hit" for Sobchak was over the interview with Ilya Remeslo – a propagandist who unexpectedly launched a scathing criticism of the authorities. Sobchak initially tried to defend her position: "I sincerely believe that such an asshole with these talking points is beneficial to SVK right now. But, of course, I could be wrong, because no one will admit it directly." But Tabak is very angry. "I want you to live with the feeling that I might not forgive you." "I don’t know if I’ll be able to communicate with you as before after this," he writes. As a result, Sobchak admits that she is "guilty." And then for a long time, she repents for that "screw-up" in every "report."

And there are many such reports. And they must be sent to both Tabak and Nemeryuk. Ksenia also got it from both of them when covering the largest drone attack on Moscow, when the oil refinery in Kapotnya and the "Sadovod" market were hit. In particular, both the Presidential Administration and the city authorities were displeased with four posts in the channels from Sobchak’s network. Ksenia sends Tabak a voice message: "About when I’m getting fucked, I want to understand for what." She reports that all agreements with the Presidential Administration are being fulfilled by her channels and that these posts do not violate those agreements. Following that, Sobchak sends Tabak and Nemeryuk a report in which she draws attention to the fact that state channels are somehow allowed more than she is. (Apparently, because on state channels almost all subscribers are bots, and the authorities are only concerned with channels that are truly popular with the population – Ed.) As examples, she cites posts from the channel "Moscowach" ("the network of a state-affiliated media manager Abu") and "Moscow Today" ("the network of a state-affiliated media manager Potupchik").

Ksenia sends a separate audio report to Nemeryuk when problems with gasoline began in Moscow. Any mention of this topic sparks anger from the Moscow authorities. Sobchak says in her message to Nemeryuk: "We have agreements, we fulfill all of them, but from that side (the Moscow authorities – Ed.) they dictate every little thing to us… We are ready to go along with everything within the framework of the agreements we can fulfill… Yes, we have signed documents (with the Moscow authorities – Ed.), we are doing everything on our side, but in return there are no exclusives, no promised stories." Sobchak asks "Lesha" (Nemeryuk) for a meeting.

Incidentally, the latter also approaches Ksenia with personal matters. In particular, he asks her not to write about her friend, the former head of Rosmolodezh, Ksenia Razuvaeva, after the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, came down on her.