Yahoo – AFP,
Anna Malpas, Anna Smolchenko, 22 April 2014
 |
A picture
taken in St. Petersburg on November 1, 2013, shows a view of
a building where
the social network VKontakte (In Touch) rents an office
space (AFP Photo/Olga
Maltseva)
|
Moscow
(AFP) - The maverick founder of Russia's top social network, Pavel Durov, said
Tuesday he had fled the country after selling his share in the company under
pressure from the security services.
Durov told
US technology news website TechCrunch he was no longer in Russia and had
"no plans to go back" after social network VKontakte (In Touch)
announced Monday that he had left the company.
On Monday
the 29-year-old said the social network had effectively been taken over by
Kremlin allies, including Igor Sechin, one of President Vladimir Putin's
closest confidants.
Durov, who
has been compared to Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, claimed he was
squeezed out of VKontakte after refusing to reveal the identities of users
involved in organising pro-EU protests in Ukraine to security services.
"I'm
out of Russia and have no plans to go back," he told TechCrunch.
"Unfortunately,
the country is incompatible with the Internet business at the moment," he
said, adding that he plans to create a new mobile social network.
VKontakte
spokesman Georgy Lobushkin did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
With more
than 100 million users concentrated in the ex-Soviet Union, VKontakte is
Russia's most popular social network, far outstripping Facebook's presence in
the country.
Durov, who
founded the company after leaving university, wrote on his VKontakte page on
Monday evening that he heard he was leaving the company from news reports.
"The
shareholders weren't brave enough to say it directly and I find out about my
mysterious dismissal from media," he wrote.
Durov had
initially announced his resignation in a message on April 1 that many took for
an April Fool's joke. He later posted a message on VKontakte saying he had not
been serious.
But
VKontakte said Monday that he had been formally dismissed after not officially
retracting his March 21 resignation.
'A
betrayal of trust'
Durov on
Monday claimed the company was now being controlled by two close allies of
Putin: Sechin, the chief executive of Russia's largest oil firm Rosneft, and
billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who partly controls the VKontakte's majority
shareholder Mail.ru group.
Durov had
previously sold his majority stake in the company to Mail.ru, which now
controls 52 percent.
The
remaining 48 percent is owned by investment group United Capital Partners,
which Durov has accused of being tied to the security services and gaining its
share through a hostile takeover.
Durov's
exit comes after he accused Russia's Federal Security Service this month of
trying to force him to give up the identities of people running group pages of
Ukrainian pro-EU protest last year.
He said he
had refused to release the information as it would be a "betrayal of
millions of residents of Ukraine who trusted us".
"Since
December 2013, I have had no property, but I have something more important
which is left: a clear conscience and my ideals, which I am ready to
defend," he has said.
In March,
the reclusive eccentric released a list of seven reasons to stay in Russia,
including talented people, beautiful women, cultural riches and low taxes.
Durov's
departure comes after prominent economist Sergei Guriev last year fled Russia
for Paris after claiming he too came under pressure from law enforcement
agencies.
He said he
could lose his freedom in a case linked to former Yukos chief Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, who now lives in self-exile in Switzerland after being released
from prison in December.
Durov's
announcement came as opposition leader Alexei Navalny was found guilty on
Tuesday of slandering a lawmaker in a move his supporters say could see the top
Putin critic jailed.
"That's
one more step to drive me into a corner," Navalny said outside the court.
The
37-year-old activist is already being held under house arrest while awaiting
trial in a separate embezzlement case.
Last year
he was given a suspended five-year sentence in another case over timber
embezzlement.
Navalny's
team says the latest guilty verdict could lead to a ruling turning his
suspended sentence into a jail term.
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