Russian PM's Twitter account hacked: 'I am resigning'

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Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter account issues a surprising series of tweets criticizing the Russian government and President Putin.

 

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

 

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's Twitter account was apparently hacked on Thursday and used to criticize the Russian government and President Vladimir Putin.

The first tweet, published on Medvedev's official Twitter account @MedvedevRussia, said -- via translation by The Interpreter -- that he was "resigning," and added that he was "ashamed of the actions of the [Russian] government." Not long after, Medvedev's account put out a series of tweets criticizing Putin and retweets from anti-Russia protesters, including praise of Yale attorney and activist Alexei Navalny, an influential anti-Putin activist.

 

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The tweets were scrubbed from Medvedev's Russian account, which has more than 2.5 million followers, within an hour after they appeared. No tweets have since been published acknowledging that the account was hacked. Medvedev's English language account, @MedvedevRussiaE, does not appear to have been affected.

The Russian government has not commented on the supposed hack.

As prime minister, some see Medvedev as little more than another mouthpiece for Putin. In 2012, Putin appointed Medvedev, who previously served as president of Russia, as the prime minister and the official leader of the United Russia Party. Medvedev also acts as the international face for Russia at meetings with foreign governments.

It's not clear at this point how his account was hacked. Russia has increasingly become a focus for activist hackers as the government continues to tighten its control of the Internet. So far, no activist groups have taken credit for the hack.

CNET has contacted Russia's embassy in the US for comment. We will update this story when we have more information.

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/russian-pms-twitter-account-hacked-i-am-resigning/