Humpty Dumpty topples Russian prime minister

Yesterday morning Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev opened his Twitter account to reveal the last thing he expected — he had resigned.

It was about 10:13 am Moscow time.

“I resign. I’m ashamed of the actions of the government. Forgive me,” read a tweet in Russian in his own name.

“Russian citizens shouldn’t suffer from the country’s higher leadership having problems in perceiving common sense,” read another tweet from him.

There was more.

“I’ve long wanted to say it. Vova [nickname for Vladimir Putin]! You’re wrong!”

What! I haven’t tweeted any of this. Snap out of it!

He slapped his iPhone on his left palm to wake himself up.

Then another.

“Anyway, I’ll become a free photographer!”

He loves photography. He’s never without his digital SLR on foreign trips, snapping for his Instagram and Facebook fans.

True. Now I’m free to pursue my art on trips abroad without that charade of meeting foreign leaders.

But hold on. I HAVEN’T RESIGNED!

“#CrimeaIsNotOurs — please retweet.”

What?! Wake up! Crimea is ours. You’re not Robin Hood, are you?

On Wednesday, Medvedev had written on a whiteboard at a youth camp in Pyatigorsk “Crimea is ours”, to the applause of the young bystanders.

But Crimea is ours… Isn’t it?

“And we were of course wrong about the pensions. Belyakov alone spoke out against it. The rest wet themselves [in fear].”

Earlier, the government had diverted pensions savings to plug holes in the federal budget. Deputy Economic Development Minister Sergey Belyakov had apologized on Facebook, “ashamed” of the government for breaking its word. Medvedev sacked him the next day.

But I had no choice. Belyakov had made fools of us all! Who are you? The Ghost of Christmas Future?

No. Tweeting in Medvedev’s name was no Robin Hood and no Dickensian ghost. It was none other than Humpty Dumpty.

The hacker group known as “Shaltay Boltay” — the Russian for Humpty Dumpty — had taken control of Medvedev’s Twitter. They’d apparently had enough of the authorities’ ever-tightening clampdown on the internet, among other things.

The trigger for their attack was the new rules introduced by Medvedev’s government making it compulsory to provide your name and passport details in order to access public WiFi. The regulation came into force on 13 August.

“Despite our initiatives,” read another hacked tweet, “certain network hooligans don’t give a shit about accessing the internet with passports.”

“And after all we’re thinking about banning electricity. That will be more reliable.”

About 20 minutes had passed, and the government was now in a fluster. All the PM’s horses and all the PM’s men were mustered to face off the threat. A statement was rushed out to the press saying that all recent tweets were untrue.

By around 11 am they had all been deleted from Twitter, lingering only in Google’s cache like a smoking gun.

Yet the damage was done.

On 23 July it was reported that state media watchdog Roskomnadzor had blocked Shaltay Boltay’s blog on Russian territory because it had published sensitive correspondence of high-ranking officials.

Now, through the looking-glass, Humpty was hitting back.

They even managed to retweet a home truth or two before finally losing control of the premier’s account:

“Throughout the world, nonsense begins to appear in the accounts of politicians when they are hacked, and only in Russia appears the truth everyone has waited so long for,” user @unkn0wnerror had tweeted.

Was that all real? Or just a nightmarish daydream?

Now as Medvedev reflects on that feverish morning, one tweet from user @ChistoLenta keeps pricking the surface like stubborn driftwood:

“Conscience hacked Medvedev’s Twitter.”

15 August 2014

(First published on 15 August at harryrizq.com)