Google Putin the unpublished story

The Washington Post he published a story that has not been revealed.

"Russian agents went to the home of a senior Google official in Moscow to deliver an ultimatum last September: remove an application (which angered Russian President Vladimir Putin) within 24 hours or you will be sent to jail."

Google quickly transferred its executive to a hotel where he checked in under a false name and with the agreement to be protected by the security of the hotel and not to receive guests.

But a little later the same agents — that its officials companys they say was from Russia's FSB, the successor to the KGB intelligence service — they showed up in the company executive's room to tell him time was running out.

Within hours, the app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin was removed and could no longer be downloaded from Stores of Google and Apple, whose main representative in Moscow faced a similarly terrifying incident.

The meetings, which have never been revealed, were part of a broader campaign that Putin stepped up last year to erode internal opposition - moves that now help him maintain power amid a global backlash over the invasion of Ukraine.

Within a year, Putin had jailed his political rival Alexei Navalny when a poisoning attempt failed to kill him. He promoted independent media on the brink of extinction, orchestrated a takeover of Russia's Kremlin-controlled Facebook, and issued "liquidation" orders against human rights groups.

In the midst of this inner attacks, Putin has also moved against foreign technology companies. Moscow has developed new devices that let it degrade or even block Russians' access to Facebook and Twitter, imposed $120 million in fines on companies accused of defying Kremlin censorship and ordered 13 of the biggest tech companies in the people to have their employees in Russia to be there when there is talk of a possible arrest or other punishment for their employers' actions — a measure US officials refer to as the "hostage law."

The article also states that “the repression strategy works. Polls, the reliability of which is always uncertain in Russia, show that the majority of Russians support the war. "In interviews with Western journalists that have gone viral on the Internet, Russians informed by state-controlled media have repeatedly repeated the Kremlin's lies about the elimination of Nazism in Ukraine, while seemingly ignoring the massacres of war."

The article also mentions how Apple has responded to the crisis in Ukraine, but with a joke:

"Likewise, Apple has kept employees in Russia and taken other steps to appease the Kremlin. The company last year began modifying iPhones sold in Russia to promote Kremlin-backed social media companies, allowing users activate them with a single click. It's something Apple would rarely do elsewhere and furthers Putin's goal of promoting government-controlled platforms to Russians, according to Russian analysts."

Note:

The news that is circulating we do not know what interests they serve and whether it is propaganda of one side or the other.
If we want to keep something from this whole story it is: Beware of polls…