Smalltime no more Russia's leading anti-corruption activist accuses the Kremlin's Internet Commissioner of profiteering

The Kremlin's Internet Commissioner, Dmitry Marinichev, earned billions of rubles on uncontested government IT contracts, and then helped engineer a law that "blackmails" foreign companies into renting data servers in Russia, according to a nonprofit group run by anti-corruption activist and Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Marinichev, who made headlines last week when he suggested that Russia would have to flex its geopolitical military might, in order to grow its technology industry, has fired back, accusing Navalny of misunderstanding Russia's data-localization law.

How did Russia's Internet Commissioner make so much money? Marinichev is the sole founder of a small company called Radius-Group, which distributes and integrates engineering and IT systems, providing equipment to data centers. According to research by Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, Radius-Group won state contracts in 2011 worth 12 million rubles (worth about $374,000 at the time). Every year since then, Marinichev's company has won more and more valuable government tenders. 

This year, Radius-Group signed a contract worth a whopping 2 billion rubles ($31.7 million).

What's the problem with getting rich? Marinichev, whose company also owns and operates its own data center, has repeatedly urged the government to create incentives for the creation of more data centers in Russia. "It makes perfect sense for someone who earns his money on data centers," Navalny wrote on his website today.

Klopp, another company owned by Marinichev, is currently building the country's largest single data center in the "Technopolis Moscow" technology complex, which is being developed under the supervision of the city's Department of Science, Industrial Policy, and Entrepreneurship. The project is valued at 3.5 billion rubles ($55.5 million), and Marinichev says he is financing most of the construction on his own. According to Navalny's group, however, the project's financials show that the state is shouldering the lion's share of the costs.

Suddenly: a mega center. Writing on his website, Navalny argues that Marinichev is the chief beneficiary of Russia's new data-localization law, which came into force earlier this year. Beginning next year, police say they will begin enforcing in earnest. "This smalltime IT entrepreneur, who before had just one data center," Navalny says of Marinichev, "is now suddenly building a mega data center on state funds, which could only be of use to the Western companies that have been blackmailed into using Russian servers."

Firing back at his accusers. Speaking to Slon magazine today, Marinichev denied any connection between Russia's law on data localization and his own appointment to become Internet Commissioner (which occurred five days after the Duma approved the law). 

According to Marinichev, foreign companies affected by the new law will only have to store limited kinds of user data, raising the demand for additional server space only negligibly, he says. "If you try to interpret the law literally, word-for-word, then services like Google would have to build second, alternative systems in Russia just for users there, which no company is ever going to do," Marinichev says.

For more about Dmitry Marinichev and his recent claims that Moscow's only two options in the global technology market are military confrontation with the United States or submission to the existing US hegemony, see: Gunboat capitalism: The Kremlin’s Internet Commissioner says Russia needs its military to challenge US technological leadership