this is potentially the corruption story of the century
There was a minor intern in Russian presidential administration. Nicknamed "rLode" in the Internets. I happened to knew him as I attended language courses ran by high school he was attending.
He held his home page there "http://rlode.narod.ru/main.html" a man of unconcealed, borderline rabid views on social class. If you ever unearth an archived version of the page, I guarantee you will have some fun time reading it. If you dig further, finding his offline contacts are not hard.
Second was a Far Eastern strongman nicknamed "Twix" or "Nuts," man running arms trade in the Far East. How he came upon the info, I didn't know. Just assume that being a "big man" in Russia involves having lots of ears. I think you still can find him making appearances online on Russian .onion arms sales sites under different Japanese cartoons themed pseudonyms.
As for people of Google's side, ask any man relocated from Moscow to Zurich. Few people I knew there voiced their extreme surprise with their relocation coming unannounced, and being done with near military level of coordination. Officials were an everyday sight in their office on Balchug street. Just the fact that their office was on an island just a river across from Kremlin tells a lot. Nobody pays a ennormous premium to have office in this special place without having "being close to Kremlin" factor in mind.
On Wang, I once read the very few English translation of 半月谈 with some excerpts from his works. I never read the complete book. But the general theme is him telling party members to not to fear the USA as it is a frustrated, insecure, diseased society - something that has not to be feared, but taken advantage of. His main discontent with USA is it spreading that "plague" around the world. Following, it is CCPs role as "a global messiah" (oh my....) to rectify that, showing world "a different vision of a successful state system."
China's priority here is totally not to censor them, it is to conduct the "handshaking ritual" and have them becoming subject under China's "law." A "blood pack" - making them partners in crime.
The same was with Yahoo. They came to China talking only about "search," but got asked about "personal data of all China's opposition members residing in US." Not only they gave everything to China, but put extreme effort to cover their "special relationship" with China's ministry of interior.
In this light, please take a look at very, very close relationship Google tried to establish with Russian government in period of 2005-2010. We are talking about nothing less than first person accounts of people involved certifying that Google was sending all kinds of "consultants" to Russian political establishment, training them in online campaigning. Simultaneously, pages of Russian political opposition did disappear in Google's search. In light of recent events, this should be subject to much scrutiny.
P.S. : Additional comment on Google. At some moment they snapped after all. They closed their Russian development centre, and evacuated key personnel to Switzerland in unprecedented visa deal with government of Zurich.
P.P.S. : On person whom Sundar Pichay was meeting. I read name Wang Huning in the article, and instantly I felt that something "clicked." The name was familiar. Wang Huning is the man who is the real propaganda chief in the communist party. To know more of his view of USA, please read his work titled "America against America." I will not be surprised at all if he is the man entrusted with running their stratagems targeting USA.