[elipsey]

"Kirill Krechetov[...]asks that his real name not be used out of concern for his safety."

'He was initially contacted several weeks before the summons letter landed in his mailbox – in the form of a message sent via the messaging service Viber: Kirill Ivanovich, we are waiting for you, Krasnodarski Krai, 10th Brigade of the GRU Special Forces."'

Uh, did they just expose his real name?

[filoleg]

Ivanovich is a common middle name. And in russian language, when you want to refer to someone in a formal way, you use "Firstname Middlename" (unlike "Mr Lastname" in english). That's how you would refer to your school teacher, to your boss, to an acquaintance/someone you dont know closely, how a bank teller would talk to you, etc.

So, no, I doubt they doxxed him.

[vba616]

"Aragorn, son of Arathorn"

[filoleg]

You joke, but that's pretty much how it is in Russian lol.

Unlike in English-centered naming conventions (and probably others, but I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on that), in Russian you dont really choose a child's middle name. It is always just father's name with slight suffix changes based on whether the person is a male (resulting in a -vich ending) or female (-vna ending).

For example, if your first name is Alexey, and you have a son and a daughter, their middle names will be Alexeyevich and Alexeyevna respectively.

[rintakumpu]

I’d guess not. Ivanovich is the patronym of the pseudonym, the full pseudonym thus being Kirill Ivanovich Krechetov. Unless you meant Krasnodarski Krai which refers to a place, not a person.

[finfinfin]

Ivanovich is his (fake) patronymic, not last name.