Smelling a rat, newspaper sets trap for 'zakazukhi' man

A cash-for-coverage bribe backfires on 'oligarch' supporter, amid evidence that media critical of the Kremlin is being targeted.

MOSCOW // Over the past 15 years, the Russian biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta has built a formidable reputation for its fearless reporting, ardent criticism of the government and fierce independent streak. Its editors, therefore, watched on with puzzlement and wonder as a young man strolled into their offices earlier this year and offered them up to 4 million roubles (Dh476,000) a month from an unidentified "oligarch" to completely overhaul the paper's editorial line.

"The first thing that made us suspicious is that he came in so confidently and so openly began discussing cash in exchange for changing our editorial policy when he clearly understands that this is illegal," said Roman Shleinov, head of Novaya Gazeta's investigations department. The type of articles he was proposing are known in Russian as zakazukhi, illegal paid-for stories passed off as regular pieces of journalism.

The bribery attempt, the editors believe, was part of a secretive, well-funded, and ongoing operation to discredit media and political groups critical of the Kremlin by implicating them in unseemly behaviour, from for-sale journalism to drug use to treason. Smelling a rat, they decided to play along, surreptitiously recording subsequent meetings and contacting police to set up a sting operation. On March 25, the suspect, Dmitry Kopylov, was detained in the sting after handing 89,000 roubles to a Novaya Gazeta employee and subsequently charged with commercial bribery, punishable by up to two years in prison.

Conducting its own investigation into the curious incident, Novaya Gazeta discovered that Mr Kopylov is a former member of the state-sponsored pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, a kind of modern-day Komsomol - the Soviet-era youth wing of the Communist Party - that pledges undying loyalty to Russia's ruling elite. Russian liberals claim that youth groups such as Nashi, which are notorious for organising smear campaigns against Kremlin opponents, are spearheading these often elaborate provocations.

Roman Dobrokhotov, an opposition youth activist, said he was approached in October 2008 by two women seeking to pay him for compromising information about journalists who had written critically of Nashi, as well as Kremlin critics such as the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Mr Dobrokhotov decided to play along and met with the two women, telling them ridiculous stories about the personalities they wanted to smear and surreptitiously filming the meeting.

Mr Dobrokhotov refused to take the 20,000 roubles the women offered him at the meeting. "After I posted the video on my blog, they disappeared very quickly," he said. Mr Dobrokhotov also claims he was mysteriously befriended by a young woman trying to lure him into using illegal drugs at her apartment. Such videos purportedly showing Russian opposition activists using narcotics have made their way onto the internet in recent years.

With Russian liberals almost completely excluded from the political process and state-controlled television, the apparent cloak-and-dagger attempts to entrap Kremlin critics seem largely superfluous. "These are just kids getting a chance to play spy games," said Valery Shiryayev, Novaya Gazeta's deputy director. Nonetheless, the provocations appear to garner solid financing. Mr Kopylov arrived at the Novaya Gazeta office in a Mercedes SUV with no licence plates and had some US$3,000 (Dh11,000) in cash to throw around.

Exactly who is putting up the money for such operations is unclear. Mr Kopylov, who could not be reached for comment for this report, has claimed he was acting as an independent contractor for unidentified individuals and that he is not connected to pro-Kremlin politics, Novaya Gazeta said. Nashi concedes that Mr Kopylov was once a member of the youth group but claims that he left the movement two years ago.

Mr Kopylov's combination of confidence and incompetence in his failed bribe attempt suggested that he had no fears whatsoever of repercussions, Mr Shiryayev said. The paper's editors had hoped that catching Mr Kopylov red-handed and a subsequent criminal trial might pull the curtains back on the sponsors of the covert campaign to discredit Russia's opposition. Whether there will be a trial, however, is still in doubt.

The criminal proceedings against Mr Kopylov kicked off last month, but the judge has sent the case back to prosecutors due to minor typos and technical errors in the case materials. There is a danger that the case could be buried in order to prevent the details behind the incident from coming to light, Mr Shleinov said. "Something could get lost, or some evidence could go missing," he said. The paper's operation to catch Mr Kopylov red-handed was never about trying to put him behind bars, but rather an attempt to expose the underhanded tactics used against Kremlin critics, Mr Shiryayev said.

"The first thing we did was check to make sure the crime couldn't result in a long prison term and that he'd likely get a suspended sentence," Mr Shiryayev said. "We found out he had a young child. If the crime had been punishable by 10 years in prison, we wouldn't have bothered with all this. "We'd have just told him to go you-know-where." [e-mail]