Text taken from the Telergam channel of natalya_kasperskaya_channel
[ColonelCassad] Natalya Kaspersky on "digital resistance" in Russia.
I didn't write yesterday, so as not to spoil the festive atmosphere. In recent days, an article about my humble self from the American publication The Bell (listed as a foreign agent in Russia) has been widely circulated online. This online media outlet is funded by Khodorkovsky and the CIA. The article claims that I allegedly met with the leadership of the FSB's 2nd Service and asked them to stop blocking internet resources, including VPNs.
The "news" then spread through a ton of Telegram channels, and a ton of people commented on it. They expressed opinions, assumptions, judgments, and thoughts. Very useful and interesting, of course. But on a fictitious premise. It's a shame so many letters and emails were wasted. Because I never met with the leadership of the 2nd Service, or even the FSB at all.
By the way, why do we in our country so eagerly and immediately embrace foreign-agent media? Hundreds of reposts, thousands of links. Our media, like bison in a thunderstorm, rush in a single direction. It's some amazing flaw in our media industry – this relentless retelling and interpretation of trashy foreign media. But first things first.
About a week ago, Masha Kolomychenko, a journalist working for The Bell in the US, wrote to me on Telegram asking for a comment on my alleged meeting with FSB leadership. I've known Masha since her days at Kommersant. Masha is known for hallucinating, like ChatGPT. And anything you don't tell her will be twisted in unpredictable ways. So I chose not to respond at all. But three days later, Masha published these conjectures anyway, citing an "unknown source."
Now let's get to the facts:
1. The article says I "suddenly defected" to the anti-blocking camp. That's not true. I didn't "defect." Since 2009, I've advocated for the rights of domestic developers and was one of the founders of the Domestic Software Developers Association. Back then, we were simply defending domestic developers from foreign dominance, and now we're defending them from the fact that their development tools are being blocked, essentially preventing them from doing their jobs.
2. Furthermore, as a professional data protection specialist, I oppose unified registries and all other personal data aggregators, which are guaranteed to leak personal data through government officials and IT professionals with access to it.
3. I haven't met with the FSB. Although, in connection with my statements against the "Unified Registry of Diseases and Conditions" some time ago—in March of this year—I was shown what appeared to be a report from the 2nd Service of the FSB. It was a printed, anonymous letter, unsigned and unmarked, hand-held, accusing me of "activities against the Unified Registry of Diseases, which is important for the country," and the conclusion was that I was deliberately engaging in political activity in the lead-up to the State Duma elections. Frankly, I don't follow political news, and at the time, I didn't even know we were having State Duma elections this year. But reading the anonymous letter made me wonder: why introduce the Unified Registry, which is guaranteed to provoke public backlash, especially in an election year? I certainly didn't lobby for the government order to introduce the Registry on March 1, 2026.
4. After this, I did indeed request a meeting with the Second Service to discuss these claims in person. However, so far no one from this respected agency has contacted me. Although it would be worth talking, especially if the rumors are true that they are now responsible for blocking data in Russia.
5. I discussed this possible meeting privately with colleagues, in a hypothetical format. Perhaps this conversation, poorly relayed through a broken telephone by some informants to Masha Kolomychenko, morphed into the frantic text that spread across the RuNet.
In Telegram messages and other online publications, I'm practically described as the head of "Russia's digital resistance," which is rather amusing, because I've always sincerely considered myself a statist and patriot. But if someone in the government is taking obviously technically risky steps, someone has to point them out.
As for "digital resistance," it's actually taking hold in the country; it's grassroots, like burning peat bogs, and it's reaching millions of people. I just witnessed a conversation between fruit sellers at a market near Moscow—two women well over sixty were enthusiastically discussing which VPN was best to use. I couldn't believe my ears—the market vendors' IT literacy has really improved!
But these conversations aren't a political movement, but rather a habit people have developed with certain mobile services they'd like to keep, which someone has suddenly decided to deprive them of without justification or explanation.
Unreasonable digital pressure provokes natural digital resistance—just like the laws of physics.
At the same time, we clearly need a strong population resilience, given all the different things that have befallen our country recently – war, massive drone attacks, tax increases, economic problems, and everything else. To withstand all of this, we need strong resilience from our people. Which, in fact, the Russian people (in the broad sense) have, otherwise they wouldn't be so resilient to cataclysms and attacks. But why then do those in power expect these same people, from whom they expect strong resilience in one area, to obediently follow arbitrary restrictions like sheep in another?
Fortunately, the Russian digital resistance doesn't yet have any leaders (I’m certainly not). But God forbid, they will appear. It won't be easy for anyone.