Potupchik Kristina

Head of the Open New Democracy Fund

POTUPCHIK, Kristina Andreyevna (b. 1986) used to be the Commissioner of the Youth Pro-Kremlin Nashi Movement, then the Press Secretary of the movement (2007–2012), press secretary of the Rosmolodezh Federal Agency for Youth Affairs and the Russian State Committee for Youth Affairs (2007–2010), member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation ( 2014–2017). Currently, she is engaged in analyzing the blogosphere for the Presidential Administration, responsible for propaganda, defamation and misinformation work on the Internet.

Defamation campaigns against the Russian opposition, dissemination of fake news and disinformation, and attacks on the independent Russian media in the interests of the Putin regime.

Kristina Potupchik supported the annexation of Crimea. She received the medal “For Merit to the Fatherland” of the 2nd degree “for organizing a [information] campaign for the Crimea.”

As the press secretary of Nashi and Rosmolodezh, Potupchik made numerous controversial and scandalous statements. In 2010, the media noted that Potupchik’s blog was one of the main promoters of compromising, including sex, videos against media and opposition figures, including Mikhail Fishman, former editor-in-chief of Russian Newsweek magazine, TV presenter and satirist Viktor Shenderovich and Member of the Presidium of the Solidarity Movement Ilya Yashin.

In November 2010, Potupchik said that the leader of the Yabloko party, Sergei Mitrokhin, may have ties to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization.

Since late January 2012, Op_Russia’s microblog on Twitter began publishing leaked correspondence archives, which allegedly belonged to the former head of Rosmoodezh Vasily Yakemenko, Nashi’s press secretary Kristina Potupchik, and some other figures. It followed that Rosmolodezh and Nashi paid some well-known bloggers for their publications and numerous LiveJournal users for pro-government comments, and organized DDoS attacks on opposition media websites.

Currently, Potupchik is involved in the creation and maintenance of a network of pro-Kremlin Telegram channels designed to devalue and shout down independent voices on the only censorship-free platform left for the Russian opposition.