Investigating on the Russian Internet
A list of tools to start looking for anyone in the Russian language
I spent many years investigating Russian entities, first as a private investigator, then as an anti-corruption investigator at Transparency International, and then as a part of a short-lived but feisty investigative project RussianGate. The Russia-Ukraine war, political tension, and sanctions make investigations with Russian companies and individuals more relevant than ever.
Open-source research is an excellent way to find information on the Russian internet. Russian courts maintain accessible online databases, business registries for companies and sole proprietors are easily searchable and available online, and social media and Telegram provide plenty of data to work through. The Russian language is an issue for non-speaking investigators but a lot of data can still be found with online translation services.
Yandex
Yandex is a Russian Google that has similar functionality and will bring results in the Russian language. It has maps, images, mail, genealogical archive records, videos, and many other tools. The search results are comprehensive and show tabs in the same way as Google does. Yandex Maps has street views and shows a lot of high-resolution details in pictures. Yandex also allows to use of the same advanced search techniques as Google.
Vkontakte
Vkontakte is the main social media for people who speak Russian. It started as a Facebook twin and became the biggest social media after Facebook and Instagram were banned. It might be hard to register for this service with an American phone number. It’s possible to search for people and check their profiles without registration on this social media.
Odnoklassniki
Odnoklassniki is another popular social media. The users are on the older side, but it’s still active. The website allows to search for users, posts, groups, music, and videos. The social media will show who visited the profiles in question unless the Invisibility mode is turned on which requires a subscription.
Businesses Public Records
This service allows to search for companies and sole proprietors based on their tax numbers, company names, individual names of owners, CEOs, shareholders, addresses, and use other filters. The search has to happen in the Russian language. The results will show a lot of company information and allow to download official documents from the federal tax service.
Court Public Records
Most of the Russian court decisions are scanned and available online. This service, this one, this one, or this one are examples of court record searches. The records for civil and criminal cases can be searched through participants of the cases, including witnesses, third parties, court specialists, case numbers, court locations, types of cases, and the appeal stages.
People Searches
The service provides a database of people and can show information that was published on social media, including date of birth, education, family ties, work information, and links to social media. Phone databases are available here, here, and here.
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The Russian Internet is heavily regulated by the government and all information that is shared might become available to law enforcement. Also, any service that requires payments will not accept foreign bank cards, PayPal, or similar payment methods, but some of them are open to taking cryptocurrencies.
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