Pokrov: Changes since 2049/10/08

Pokrov LLC (Покров, veil) is a Russian digital security company headquartered in Innopolis. Founded by Yuri Golitsyn and Violaine Michiels in 2032, Pokrov provides bespoke services for private and government clients, including surveillance countermeasures, high-end data encryption, cryptocurrency vaulting, and security consulting.

Touted as one of the major success stories of Russian President Denis Molchalin’s Digital Direction initiative, Pokrov primarily serves clients in Russia, with subsidiaries operating in China, India, and South Africa. On October 1st 2049, Golitsyn was assassinated by a drone strike at Beijing Daxing International Airport. In response, President Molchalin announced his intention to nationalise Pokrov and its assets.

HistoryPermalink

FoundingPermalink

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Pokrov was established on April 13th 2032 in a partnership between Yuri Golitsyn and Violaine Michiels. The company drew its name from its signature product: an adaptive and platform-agnostic encryption veil developed by a team of engineers recruited by Michiels. ^[1]

The veil’s primary selling point was its seamless encryption coverage, which could intelligently migrate across devices and programs and rewrite itself in real time in response to hostile decryption attempts. Golitsyn described this technology as a “passion project” inspired by the intense media scrutiny he and his brother Arkady Golitsyn had faced in their twenties.

The rollout plan originally envisioned by Golitsyn and Michiels was accelerated in 2034 after the Russian Ministry of Defense began evaluating Pokrov’s algorithm as a replacement for the aging encryption system used by the Russian Armed Forces for battlefield communication. In the weeks following the news, Pokrov secured an estimated ¥2.3 billion in Series A funding from foreign and domestic parties, including celebrity investor Efrim Waite.

ExpansionPermalink

Pokrov first marketed its encryption service exclusively to wealthy private individuals, particularly celebrities and executives, with Golitsyn himself touted as Customer One. At the suggestion of Michiels, early clients were encouraged to invest in the company, allowing Pokrov to rapidly accumulate seed funding as its technology became more robust. By March 2033, the company had grown from 18 full-time employees to over 120 and successfully signed its first enterprise-level customers.

In 2035, Pokrov formally signed an agreement to provide intelligent encryption technology to the Ministry of Defence. This paved the way for an initial public offering (IPO) on October 25th 2035, which was subject to concerns that Pokrov would be unable to expand into major Western markets if it refused to provide backdoor access for local law enforcement agencies. Despite these concerns, Pokrov would eventually become one of Russia’s largest IPOs of the 2030s, with a valuation of ¥5.5 billion.

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Pokrov gained further strength with the launch of Russian President Denis Molchalin’s Digital Direction initiative in 2036, which provided funding from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to finance joint ventures with technology companies in China and India. Though its effectiveness was sharply questioned by both left- and right-leaning commentators in Russia, Digital Direction allowed Pokrov to expand its business to other BRICS countries.

At the urging of President Molchalin, Pokrov relocated its headquarters from Saint Petersburg to Innopolis in 2037, occupying a new custom-built campus known as the Pokrov complex.

G6 controversyPermalink

While Pokrov benefited significantly from the patronage of President Molchalin, Golitsyn had grown increasingly at odds with government policy by the 2040s. He harshly critiqued Russia’s vote in favour of Resolution ES-13/6 and the country’s adoption of G6 in 2041. Golitsyn also described neural colloids as “a dagger in the gut for individual privacy and autonomy.”

Russian officials dismissed Golitsyn’s statements as “confused,” adding that the government would “strategically review” its existing contracts with Pokrov due to concerns about the company’s work. The announcement saw Pokrov’s share price fall by more than 18% and triggered a shareholder revolt. While Golitsyn narrowly avoided being ousted as director, Michiels resigned from the company’s supervisory board, stating he and Golitsyn were “no longer aligned.”

Golitsyn continued to voice skepticism of G6 despite this rebuke, earning public support from opposition politicians and far-right militant groups such as the Frontoviki. In 2044, Golitsyn announced a partnership between Pokrov and Nuance to establish a new division for G6 compliance to advise companies concerned about data transmission and security. The announcement drew further criticism from the Russian government officials as well as Xu Shaoyong, who dismissed the concept as “utterly unnecessary.”

In August 2045, the Russian government launched a criminal investigation into Pokrov after the arrest of Zhupao senior executive Deng Bowen on charges of corporate espionage, with accusations that Deng had facilitated a Pokrov operation to illegally reverse engineer colloid technology, enabling its algorithms to block and alter data generated by colloids and other G6-compatible devices.

This was followed by additional civil suits filed by Zhupao, alleging that Pokrov had been developing and selling collocidals since 2042. In a public statement, Golitsyn denied any wrongdoing and condemned President Molchalin and Zhupao for “deliberately misrepresenting the long-term risks of colloid implants.” In September 2045, all pending legal actions were unexpectedly dismissed, with rumours of an out-of-court settlement. ^[2]

In October 2049, President Molchalin announced the approval of a government commission to place Pokrov in external administration and nationalise its assets, causing the company’s share price to plummet. Michiels, who was considering a return to Pokrov to preserve Golitsyn’s legacy, has criticised the move, calling it a “blatant retaliation against Yuri and his family.”

Death of Yuri GolitsynPermalink

On October 1st 2049, Golitsyn was assassinated in a cyberattack that took place at Beijing Daxing International Airport. He was aboard the private helicopter of Xu when it was shot down by a drone strike. ^[3] Golitsyn’s presence aboard the helicopter was not known until October 2nd 2049, with Golitsyn able to remain undetected in China by making use of experimental baffle technology developed by Pokrov.

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On October 5th 2049, a Pokrov official indicated that Matvey Kozlov, the company’s Director of Operational Security, hashad not been seen for “several days.” Subsequent to this, President Molchalin has initiated an investigative probe of Pokrov’s recent activities, which indicated that Kozlov travelled with Golitsyn and that he was stranded in China. On October 8th 2049, Kozlov’s body was recovered in Dharwad, India, with Efua Amankwah-Crouse claiming he was responsible for the death of Connie Muren.

On October 6th 2049, an audit of Pokrov’s activities indicated that Golitsyn had made plans to step down as director. According to the audit, Golitsyn had limited his role on Pokrov’s supervisory board and named Pokrov’s CTO Pavel Kornfeld as his replacement, which would have taken effect on October 2nd 2049 to coincide with the announcement of Golitsyn’s bid for the Russian presidency.

In an interview with Forbes France, Michiels claimed he was “open” to a return to Pokrov, citing his desire to preserve Golitsyn’s legacy despite their previous differences.

See alsoPermalink

• Yuri Golitsyn
• Matvey Kozlov

ReferencesPermalink