Pavel Durov, the founder of Russia’s most popular social network site VKontakte, says he has been fired and that allies of President Vladimir Putin have taken over his site.
Pavel Durov who ran VKontakte had previously announced he was leaving the company but said he had withdrawn his resignation.
The company denied it had been withdrawn.
Pavel Durov had previously refused requests from the Russian government to censor posts on his site.
In a statement Pavel Durov said that he only found out about the loss of his job from press reports: “Today I was fired as general director of VKontakte. It’s interesting that the shareholders didn’t have the bravery to do this directly, and that I learned about my firing from the press.
Pavel Durov had previously announced he was leaving VKontakte but said he had withdrawn his resignation
“Today VKontakte goes under the complete control of Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov. Probably, in the Russian context, something like this was inevitable, but I’m happy we lasted seven and a half years. We did a lot. And part of what’s been done can’t be turned back.”
Igor Sechin is the chief executive of state-owned oil company Rosneft and was Vladimir Putin’s former deputy chief of staff.
Alisher Usmanov, who is the richest man in Russia according to Forbes, made his money in iron ore and steel and until recently held a stake in Facebook. He has a large shareholding in VKontakte via his internet company Mail.ru.
Pavel Durov announced his resignation publicly on April 1st but two days later said it was an April Fool’s joke.
The Russian news agency Interfax reported that Vkontakte said they had acted on Pavel Durov’s resignation letter of March 21 as he had not withdrawn it officially within an allowed one-month grace period.
In an interview with news website TechCrunch, Pavel Durov said he was no longer in Russia and had no plans to return.
“Unfortunately, the country is now incompatible with internet business at the moment.
“I’m afraid there is no going back [to the company], not after I publicly refused to co-operate with the authorities. They can’t stand me,” he said.
VKontakte has more than 100 million users and had been subject to several government requests for information.
Pavel Durov had been asked by the Russian authorities to hand over the details of Ukrainians who had used the site to create groups related to anti-government protests. He was also asked to close down a group that supported Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
He refused the request and said he sold his shares in the company so that he could continue “to make the right decisions”.
“I have a clean conscience and ideals that I am willing to defend,” Pavel Durov said in a post at the time.
Reports suggest that a replacement for Pavel Durov will be elected at the next VKontakte board meeting.
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According to new reports, Russian volunteers are being recruited via social media to cross the border into Ukraine to offer “moral support”.
“We need men aged 18-45 who are already in Ukraine, or are ready to go,” says the “Civil Defense of Ukraine” page on VKontakte, the main Russian-language social network.
The page was set up just over a week ago and has more than 7,000 followers. It includes an online form calling for recruits and is asking male volunteers to cross the border, to offer what it calls “moral support” to people they believe have been put at risk by the recent “coup”.
Vladimir Prokopenko, whose name is at the top of a list of members on the site, has been widely quoted in the Russian press as saying he wants Russians to travel to Ukraine to engage in peaceful protest rallies.
“If the situation becomes violent, then we will not send anyone,” Vladimir Prokopenko told the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.
“We send people to Donetsk and Kharkiv,” the VKontakte page says – both cities in eastern Ukraine.
Russian volunteers are being recruited via social media to cross the border into Ukraine to offer moral support
The page also mentions Odessa, in south-west Ukraine, as an important destination. Offering advice to Russians attempting to cross the border, the site encourages people to avoid attracting attention.
“Remember, you’re just a tourist,” it says.
Separate and unconfirmed reports claim some Russian citizens have been paid to travel to Kharkiv in Ukraine, where they have been involved in violent clashes.
VKontakte is a widely used social network in Russia, which reportedly has 100 million active users.
The campaign echoes the sentiment behind a hashtag which has trended on Twitter in recent days. #РоссияСвоихНеБросает, which translates roughly as “Russia doesn’t leave its own behind” and has been used almost 85,000 times, appears to express a common bond felt by Russians towards Russian-speaking Ukrainian citizens.
Newly created Twitter accounts have apparently been used to tweet the hashtag repeatedly, in order to make it trend.
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Flight attendant Tatiana Kozlenko, who posted a picture of herself giving her passengers the finger, has been sacked by Aeroflot airline.
Tatiana Kozlenko put the snap up on her personal page on Vkontakte, one of Russia’s most popular Facebook-style social networks.
Within hours the snap – which appears to show the arm of an air hostess giving the finger to an airplane cabin full of passengers – had clocked up dozens of “likes”.
But the image then went viral after it was posted on Twitter and reTweeted by hundreds of users.
Aeroflot airline bosses soon found out about the photo and fired Tatiana Kozlenko.
Flight attendant Tatiana Kozlenko, who posted a picture of herself giving her passengers the finger, has been sacked by Aeroflot airline
Aeroflot – who announced the sacking on their Twitter account – said: “Posting this photo shows Tatiana’s attitude towards passengers and her duties. She acknowledged her fault when she spoke to her managers.”
But Tatiana Kozlenko claims it isn’t her arm in the snap – or even one of her airline’s planes.
She admitted that she tagged herself in the photo, which doesn’t show anyone’s face – but claims it isn’t her.
“I don’t consider myself guilty! The photo was added to my page, I only tagged myself on it!!! The hand isn’t mine, the plane is not my company’s!!! I don’t understand what they spoil my life for!!! I’m asking you for help and support!!” she said on her Vkontakte page.
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