Information support of environmentalists’ activities is a significant tool to confront violation of the “green” legislation. Consequently, those people environmentalists confront to, try to make use of the social networks and media too. And, along with brave people who are committed to stand for protection of nature, provocateurs are regularly showing up. Their task is to defame good people. One of them is Sergey Dorofeev, a citizen of Moscow.

Sergey Dorofeev has been showing up in social networks delivering ungrounded and falsified accusations at least since 2015 when he tried to vilify eco-activists of Moscow suburbs in the township of Seliatino. People living in Seliatino had been speaking against deforestation in their neighborhood and they won the case at the supreme court. Meanwhile Sergey Dorofeev tried to convince public that the forest protectors had been paid by the regional administration and “let the protest down”. He had never cared for discrepancies and absence of common sense whenever he made any public statements.

It was in 2017 when Dorofeev tried to bring activists of the movement ”Protect historical Pskov” into discredit. Since then, Sergey Dorofeev “has been fighting” against people who are against garbage dumps and incinerators near populated areas. In 2017 powerful local protest groups had been formed in Moscow suburbs: Volokolamsk (Yadrovo landfill), Noginsk (Timokhovo landfill), Voskresensk,Balashikha (Kuchino landfill), Narofominsk,Colomna (Volovich landfill), Klin,Sergiev Passad,Serpukhov. Dorofeev had done his best to vilify activists actually in all these towns, to bring a split among the groups protesting. In a number of cases, he had succeeded doing so. For the rest the password when meeting one another was: “I am opponent to Dorofeev, he has tried to blame me in receiving money and betrayal”. Anyone who did at least something against the administration of the Moscow suburbs in the field of environment have been insulted and attacked, ungrounded as a rule.

Events with participation of Dorofeev develop according to one and the same scheme, it has been confirmed by all activists in the Moscow suburb s and other regions as well - there are numerous screenshots and links. He usually started with introduction of himself in a protesting environment: reposts, making friends, reposting comments of activists, personal invitations to his own group etc.

He extends real support to some people personally: legal or any other, he “saves” some people from the police, arrives at the territory endangered, some people are supported in Moscow medical clinics if there is a need. His task is to earn gratitude, sympathy and trust. Then comes time to push people towards doubts regarding effectiveness of the key activists’ work and the movement on the whole. The last strike is always provocative - false questions repeated endless, permanent discussion of personal correspondence, personal lives of the activists and the like.

Dorofeev does not care for facts to defame anyone, instead he repeats his own speculations hundreds of times and leaves links for his previous publications. So simple, “a lie repeated hundreds of times becomes a truth”. Any person who has become his target is helpless: how one can prove that he or she has not received money from “Rostekh” or the American government? Absurdity of Dorofeev’s accusations has no end: he accuses people being paid by the administration of the region and “Rostekh” i.e. people who have houses at a kilometer distance from the incinerator being built; he makes statement that these people had been promised fair compensation for their property and they just would simulate a protest. Hereby we are speaking about houses in the Moscow suburbs prices of which amount to tens of millions of rubles. Absolutely clear that neither the administration nor the “Rostekh” will never spend this amount of money having no clear vision of the final results and having their own resource in the government, but Dorofeev does not care for the “nonsense” of the type – he just pours dirt on people.

Arsenal” of Dorofeev and his people:

• a counterquestion is an answer to any question;

• provocative questions repeated, hinting at defamatory connections and vested interests;

• as “a prove” – links of his own posts, out of context screens from comments and personal correspondence;

• multiple mentions of activists and the eco-movement in connection of people or organizations compromised earlier without any connection and sense in the text. His task: by means of repetition to convince people in existence of the mentioned connections.

Does Dorofeev manage to carry out his plans? Unfortunately, yes. Sometimes people listen to provocateurs and people living next to one another for years stop trusting each other. However, after any short split, environmentalists reunite and continue their fight started together earlier. In order not to succumb to provocateurs, it is necessary to understand that Dorofeev and people like him may happen to be somewhere near you. Therefore, it is important to learn how to identify bad guys like him.

Environmentalists can oppose similar pressure only united. Any split in the groups and attempts to trace paid and guilty participants among activists play into the hands of power and harms the protest movement. No one can be accused without evidence – it is a standard for all honest men. People who violated these rules in old times, as minimum were not accepted in the society and as maximum, they were challenged, simply. In the times of social networks, there is a right way to oppose provocateurs: ignore them and their speculations.

We do ignore Sergey Dorofeev and hand him over our Black Mark he has deserved for his black deeds!