44. See “Obshchestvennyi sovet pri Ministerstve prirodnykh resursov i ekologii Rossiiskoi Federatsii,” Doklad No.2, Rabochaya gruppa po realizatsii mekhanizma “regulyatornoi gil’otiny,” July 17, 2020 (document, author’s archive). I would like to thank Angelina Davydova for this valuable information.
45. For a critical account of Gref’s approach to digitalization, see Jardar ØstbØ, “Hybrid Surveillance Capitalism: Sber’s Model for Russia’s Modernization,” Post-Soviet Affairs 37, no. 5 (2021): 435–452. The criticism became much stronger in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic when digital technologies were arbitrarily and rather ineffectively used by the Russian subnational authorities for control over the movement of people in big cities.
46. For an overview, see Carolina Vendil Pallin, “Internet Control through Ownership: The Case of Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs 33, no. 1 (2017): 16–33.
47. See “Rostelekom zakryl natsional’nyi poiskovik ‘Sputnik,’” Kommersant, September 8, 2020, https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4483248, accessed September 7, 2021.
48. See Lada Shamardina, “‘Pomenyaite vash algoritm’: Duma otlozhila vopros o ‘Yandex. Novostyakh,’” The Bell, August 19, 2019, https://thebell.io/pomenyajte-vash-algoritm-gosduma-otlozhila-vopros-o-yandeks-novostyah/, accessed September 7, 2021.
49. For various assessments, see Larry Diamond, “The Road to Digital Unfreedom: The Threat of Postmodern Totalitarianism,” Journal of Democracy 30, no. 1 (2019): 20–24; Towards Digital Enlightenment: The Essays on the Dark and Light Sides of the Digital Revolution, ed. Dirk Helbing (Cham: Springer Nature, 2019).
50. See Leonid Volkov, “Kto zarabotaet na ‘pakete Yarovoi,’” leonidvolkov.ru, August 3, 2016, https://www.leonidvolkov.ru/p/160/, accessed September 7, 2021; Mariya Plyusnina, “Blokirovka Youtube mozhet sozdat’ okolorevoluyutsionnuyu situatsiyu,” znak.com, December 25, 2019, https://www.znak.com/2019-12-25/pochemu_rossiyskim_vlastyam_vazhno_nauchitsya_tochechno_otklyuchat_internet_k_2021_godu, accessed September 7, 2021.
51. See Matt Burgess, “This Is Why Russia’s Attempts to Block Telegram Have Failed,” Wired, April 28, 2018, https://www.wired.co.uk/article/telegram-in-russia-blocked-web-app-ban-facebook-twitter-google, accessed September 7, 2021; Ksenia Ermoshina, Francesca Musiani, “The Telegram Ban: How Censorship ‘Made in Russia’ Faced Global Internet,” First Monday 26, no. 5 (2021), https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03215281/document, accessed September 9, 2021.
52. See Mark Krutov, Robert Coalson, “The Insulted and the Injured: ‘Streisand Effect’ Dulls Impact of Law on Dissing Russian Authorities,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, October 6, 2019, https://www.rferl.org/a/streisand-effect-dulls-impact-of-insult-law-putin/30202144.html, accessed September 7, 2021.
53. See Tatyana Vasil’chuk, “‘Mishki’ na servere. Kak onlain-golosovanie privelo v Mosgordumu kandidatov, podderzhannykh ‘Edinoi Rossiei,’” Novaya gazeta, September 12, 2019, https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/09/12/81950-mishki-na-servere, accessed September 7, 2021.
54. For a description, see Dmitry Kuznets, Alexander Ershov, “Tak vse-taki byli fal’sifikatsii na elektronnom golosovanii—ili vlasti prosto mobilizovali na nego bol’she svoikh storonnikov?,” meduza.io, September 24, 2021, https://meduza.io/feature/2021/09/24/tak-vse-taki-byli-falsifikatsii-na-elektronnom-golosovanii-ili-vlasti-prosto-mobilizovali-na-nego-bolshe-svoih-storonnikov, accessed February 16, 2022. For a discussion, see Andrei Yu. Buzin, Alexander A. Isavnin, Dmitry A. Kuznetsov, Dmitry V. Nesterov, Boris V. Ovchinnikov, Oleg Ch. Reut, Aleksei V. Rybin, Viktor L. Tolstoguzov, Yevgeny V. Fedin, “Experience and Prospects of Remote Electronic Voting,” Electoral Politics 2, no. 6 (2021): 9, https://electoralpolitics.org/en/articles/distantsionnoe-elektronnoe-golosovanie-opyt-i-perspektivy/, accessed February 16, 2022.
55. For in-depth analyses, see Carolina Schlaufer, “Why Do Non-Democratic Regimes Promote E-Participation? The Case of Moscow Active Citizen Online Voting Platform,” Governance 34, no. 3 (2021): 821–836; Daria Gritsenko, Andrey Indukaev, “Digitalising City Governance in Russia: The Case of the ‘Active Citizen’ Platform,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 6 (2021): 1102–1124.
56. On the use of digitalization by Moscow city government in other policy areas, see Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Nisan Gorgulu, “Digital Technologies and Authoritarian Regimes: A Case of Pothole Management in Moscow,” PONARS Policy Memos, no. 661 (2020), https://www.ponarseurasia.org/digital-technologies-and-authoritarian-regimes-a-case-of-pothole-management-in-moscow/, accessed September 9, 2020.
57. For an overview, see Andrey Starodubtsev, Federalism and Regional Policy in Contemporary Russia (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018).
58. See Alexander Libman, Andrei Yakovlev, “A Centralist Approach to Regional Development: The Case of the Russian Ministry for the Development of the Far East,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 6 (2021): 1125–1148.
59. See Andrei Yakovlev, Lev Freinkman, Sergey Makarov, Victor Pogodaev, “How Do Russia’s Regions Adjust to External Shocks? Evidence from the Republic of Tatarstan,” Problems of Post-Communism 67, no. 4–5 (2020): 417–431.
60. On the large-scale program of housing renovation in Moscow, see Regina Smyth, “How the Kremlin Is Using the Moscow Renovation Project to Reward and Punish Voters,” PONARS Policy Memos, no. 513 (2017), http://www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/kremlin-using-moscow-renovation-project-reward-punish-voters, accessed September 7, 2021. See also Marina Khmelnitskaya, Emmirosa Ihalainen, “Urban Governance in Russia: The Case of Moscow Territorial Development and Housing Renovation,” Europe-Asia Studies 73, no. 6 (2021): 1149–1175.