On Friday, August 9, a day before a massive political protest at Sakharov Prospekt in Moscow, the Telegram channel ‘Comrade Major’ (@MayorFSB) posted an Excel spreadsheet containing thousands of fields with personal information and contact details of alleged opposition supporters.
‘Comrade Major’ presented the file as coming from “these idiots from [opposition leader] Navalny’s team,” but Navalny’s office told Meduza that the ‘leaked’ document uses a completely different format than the one Navalny’s team uses to store information about volunteers and staff.
What’s more, the file’s properties indicate that it was created on July 27, and last modified on August 9. The “company” field reads “Moscow Interior Ministry Main Directorate.”
As of August 16, ‘Comrade Major’ had nearly 32,000 subscribers on Telegram. The channel’s own description identifies the creator as “your personal curator from the FSB [Federal Security Service].” For the past few weeks, the channel’s content has focused on the political tensions in the Russian capital, presenting protests in a negative light and praising the security forces.
‘Comrade Major:’ Personal data of 3,000 “Navalny supporters” leaked by anonymous Telegram channelRead More
