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Artyukhov The Edited
How the Wikipedia Article on the Yamal Governor Turned Into a List of Achievements
Between February and March 2025, the Wikipedia article about Dmitry Artyukhov, governor of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, underwent a series of edits. The entry was updated to include information highlighting the accomplishments of the “youngest governor in the country,” who by that time had held office for over six years.
Notably, the article was expanded to describe the implementation of programs for relocating residents from unsafe housing, support measures for families, the 2020 opening of the all-season Salekhard–Nadym road, the introduction of new rules for calculating northern wage premiums in Yamal, the launch of the “Chum Capital” initiative, and various new sports and cultural projects.
The “Chum Capital” program is a support measure for young Indigenous families in the North who maintain a traditional way of life. It provides them with a set of equipment and materials for setting up a chum — a traditional nomadic dwelling.
The edits also emphasized the governor’s ongoing engagement with the public, such as his personal outreach project to visit remote settlements and meet with residents in person.
Who's Editing the Governor
All of the recent edits were made by Dmitry Yerokhin, an experienced Wikipedia editor. Yerokhin has previously acknowledged receiving paid offers to edit the site and used to run an agency called Wikiconsulting, which offered services for writing and editing encyclopedia articles. Over the years, he’s made changes to numerous articles on banks, as well as on various Russian businesspersons and oligarchs.
Wikipedia requires all contributors to disclose any conflicts of interest and, if edits are made for compensation, to explicitly name the client.
Editors who systematically violate these rules risk being permanently banned. Their contributions may be deleted or flagged with a “Paid editing without disclosure” warning at the top of the article. That template alerts readers that PR professionals may have been involved, and the content should be read with a critical eye.
Ironically, Yerokhin himself has been very active in adding such flags — often mechanically, without assessing the current state of the article. One telling example is the article about the 2020 Norilsk diesel spill. It’s true that a now-banned editor, Vesan99, had made questionable edits to that page. However, the article was fully rewritten by other contributors and, by April 2025, was promoted to “featured article” status. No warning labels remained on it. Yerokhin re-added the “paid editing” tag in late June, citing the old, unrelated activity — despite the article having undergone a complete overhaul by then.
According to representatives of Wikiganda, a project dedicated to fighting information manipulation on Wikipedia, such practices are counterproductive. Instead of improving article quality, they say, the focus shifts to formal tagging and targeting specific users.
Often, under the pretext of fighting “paid editors,” Yerokhin simply reverts entire sets of edits wholesale — without analyzing their actual content. As a result, articles are left outdated and stripped of relevant information, which directly undermines Wikipedia’s goal of providing accurate and up-to-date knowledge.
The Press Office Is Watching Wikipedia
Yerokhin’s vigilance toward others, however, didn’t stop him from overlooking the platform’s rules himself. He failed to disclose his own paid editing in the case of the Yamal governor’s article. This Wikipedia entry marked a new direction for Yerokhin, who previously focused almost exclusively on businessmen and corporations, not regional politicians.
Wikiganda obtained two Google Docs created by Olesya Litovskikh, a staff member of the Yamal governor’s press office. The first document, dated summer 2024, appears to be a draft of the “desired” Wikipedia article on Artyukhov — essentially, a technical brief for editing the governor’s page.
The second document was created in September 2024. By March 2025, an anonymous user began making Wikipedia edits that closely mirrored those found in the governor's article—posted under the name Dmitry Yerokhin.
Many of the changes were lifted almost word-for-word from the “wish list” and were added directly to Wikipedia—then immediately copied into a separate “reporting” document.
The edited version of the article reads more like a performance report, heavily focused on the governor’s achievements. Notably absent are any critical perspectives on Artyukhov’s tenure, despite several well-documented controversies: rising utility rates, sluggish government response to summer floods, and poor road conditions, to name a few. In effect, the revised article constructs a one-sided, overly positive public image of the regional leader.
Update as of July 22, 2025
Shortly after this investigation was published, two warning banners were added to the Wikipedia article about the Yamal governor. One flagged the entry for suspected undisclosed paid editing; the other criticized the article’s tone as non-encyclopedic—similar to a resume or autobiography.
Dmitry Yerokhin, the editor responsible for the changes, refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing during internal Wikipedia discussions and did not confirm collaboration with the governor’s press office. As a result, his editing privileges on the platform were significantly restricted—he is no longer allowed to contribute to any Wikipedia articles.
This wasn’t the first time Artyukhov’s Wikipedia biography had raised red flags. Back in late 2018 and early 2019, several interconnected accounts made favorable edits to the profiles of Kremlin-aligned politicians, including Artyukhov.
“Not all paid edits are equally harmful to Wikipedia. If it’s a biography of a musician, entrepreneur, or startup, the paid input usually focuses on details and doesn’t distort the broader public picture. But when politicians or pharmaceutical companies secretly shape articles in their own interest, it becomes a tool for manipulating public opinion. That’s why such interventions must be addressed swiftly and firmly.”
However, Gruznov also notes that detecting these kinds of edits is still not automated. The platform continues to rely on manual oversight and the diligence of individual contributors—posing an ongoing systemic risk.
Cover photo: Press Service of Gazprom Neft
