Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky is a Russian political figure, academic and publicist who served as the Minister of Culture from May 2012 to January 2020. He has the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation. He is a member of the General Council of the United Russia party.

Dissernet is a volunteer community network working to clean Russian science of plagiarism. The core activity of the community is conducting examinations of doctoral and habilitation theses defended in Russian scientific and educational institutions since the end of the 1990s, and making the results of such examinations known to as many people as possible. The community is composed of professional scientists working in various fields of science both in Russia and abroad, and also journalists, civil activists and volunteers.