The Real Russia. Today.

Another billionaire lands behind bars, the Finance Ministry wants to shake up airfare costs, and a criminal case closes down

Monday, April 2, 2018

• Police arrest billionaire Ziyavudin Magomedov and several associates
• The State Duma considers new cinema safety regulations and new censorship against defamation
• The child of another “HIV dissident” dies at four months
• Russia's Postal Service suffers another blow to its reputation
• The Finance Ministry has a bold new proposal to raise tax revenue from airfares
• A Moscow blogger is booted out of Kemerovo
• Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev resigns
• The charges are dropped against the ex-KGB agent who took down two mobsters

Story of the weekend: Another billionaire is arrested 🚨

Ziyavudin Magomedov is worth an estimated $1.4 billion. His holding company, “Summa,” is widely considered one of the least transparent conglomerates in Russia. On Saturday a court in Moscow placed him and several others under arrest for embezzling billions of rubles. Meduza reviews what we know about this case:

• Who is Ziyavudin Magomedov?
• Why is his holding company considered to be shady?
• What are the charges against Magomedov and his associates?
• How have police investigated him?
• What does he say about the allegations?

Read the full story here: “How Moscow arrested its latest billionaire, Ziyavudin Magomedov”

Some more bright ideas from the State Duma 💡

🎫 Move those movie theaters

The State Duma is planning legislation that will require the nation’s shopping centers to move all movie theaters to the ground floor, to avoid any repeat of the recent fire in Kemerovo that killed 64 people, including 41 children — many of whom were trapped in a fourth-story cinema. Lawmakers will also propose stricter criminal penalties for rendering services that fail to meet public safety standards. In connection with the Kemerovo tragedy, police have already detained seven people on charges of negligent homicide and fire safety violations.

🤐 Shut your mouth, defamers

State Duma deputies have submitted legislation that would allow the government to block access to websites and online content that contain information deemed by a court to be defamatory. Currently, courts can only fine people periodically for disobeying court orders to delete defamatory content.

This would change things. Since May 2017, when a judge ruled that his investigative report into Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev defames billionaire Alisher Usmanov, Alexey Navalny has simply been incurring occasional fines for refusing to take down the report. The court ordered Navalny to delete the segments of his report that refer to Usmanov, but he has refused, and the report is still available online. Under the proposed legislation, Russia’s Bailiff Service would be empowered to ask the federal censor, Roskomnadzor, to block Navalny’s blog and YouTube for failing to remove the claims about Usmanov.

An “HIV dissident” lets another child die 💉

Police in Irkutsk are investigating a 28-year-old woman for the negligent homicide of her four-month-old daughter. The baby was born with HIV and died of pneumonia in late February, after her parents refused all medical treatments, relying only on homeopathic remedies. The mother and father are so-called “HIV dissidents” — people who believe HIV and AIDS are myths. The couple reportedly has another two small children. There are an estimated 33,500 HIV positive people living in the Irkutsk region.

Not a great first flight 💌

It went up and then it went down. That’s the short version of what happened to the Russian Postal Service’s first drone delivery, which crashed shortly after taking off in Ulan-Ude. Carrying a small package, the aircraft launched, flew into the sky, and then barreled straight into a nearby house, smashing into a million pieces. It was supposed to journey more than nine miles to the village of Nizhny Sayantui. It didn’t make it.

The postal service’s director, Nikolai Podguzov, and the head of the Buryatia Republic, Alexey Tsydenov, were both on hand for the launch of the drone. Before the crash, Tsydenov said his region plans to start manufacturing its own drones. After the delivery failed, he blamed it on Wi-Fi interference. No bystanders were injured when the drone came down, and the package is apparently still in one piece.

Rewriting Russia's airfares ✈️

Russia’s Finance Ministry wants to eliminate the value-added tax on all domestic flights between regional airports, while simultaneously raising the VAT from 10 percent to 18 percent on all flights through airports in Moscow. The newspaper Vedomosti learned about the proposal through a letter written in late March from a Putin advisor to the minister of transport. A source close to the Transport Ministry told Vedomosti that the tax reforms would saves airlines roughly 12 billion rubles ($209.2 million) a year in regional flights, while costing them an extra 29 billion rubles ($505.5 million) in higher taxes on flights through Moscow.

The potential winners and losers. The Transport Ministry, official representatives of Domodedovo airport, and S7 airlines all told Vedomosti that higher taxes in Moscow would raise ticket prices and reduce the number of available flights. In 2017, 62.7 million passengers flew Russia’s friendly skies. Almost three-quarters of these people flew through Moscow. In 2017, “Airports of the Regions” owner Viktor Vekselberg asked President Putin to end the VAT on all flights that circumvented Moscow. Aeroflot, Russia’s biggest airline, runs all its domestic flights through the capital.

You're not wanted here, Misha 👉

A blogger named Mikhail Svetov landed in Kemerovo this Sunday for a public speaking event and was promptly stuffed onto a plane that took him back to Moscow, he says. Writing on Facebook, Svetov says a group of men claiming to be miners grabbed him as he was walking out of the airport in Kemerovo, before forcing him onto a returning flight. Svetov says he was supposed to deliver a lecture titled, “Why You Can’t Trust the Government.” On March 28, Svetov published a video about the deadly fire in Kemerovo, criticizing then Governor Aman Tuleyev and calling for the resignations of top regional officials.

Out with the old in Kemerovo 👔

On April 1, long-time Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev announced his resignation, declaring that “the heavy burden” of the job had become too much for him. Sergey Tsivilev, the region’s 56-year-old lieutenant governor, has taken over. Tsivilev is an ex-soldier and a former business partner of the billionaire and close Putin ally Gennady Timchenko.

He took on Young Shakro's men and lived to tell the tale 👮‍♂️

Police have closed a criminal case against the former KGB officer Eduard Budantsev, who murdered two men working for the mobster Zakhariy Kalashov, known as “Young Shakro.” The killing took place in December 2015 at the “Elements” cafe in Moscow. Men representing Kalashov (working directly for another criminal named Andrey “The Italian” Kochuikov) entered the cafe and confronted the owner, Zhanna Kim. Budantsev intervened on Kim’s behalf, killing two of Kochuikov’s men. Police detained everyone at the scene, and later released Budantsev on his own recognizance. In late December 2017, the news agency TASS reported that investigators closed the case against Budantsev after it was transferred back from the Attorney General’s Office.

There’s more to this case. Several high-ranking investigators in Moscow have been detained on charges of accepting bribes to try to facilitate Kochuikov’s release. Denis Nikandrov and Mikhail Maksimenko are charged with taking money from Kalashov to help free Kochuikov. In January 2018, prosecutors read out an indictment against Maksimenko that implicated Moscow Investigative Committee chief Alexander Drymanov in the bribery scheme. Drymanov has denied any knowledge of the allegations. In March 2018, Kalashov and Kochuikov were sentenced to nine years and 10 months in prison and eight years and 10 months in prison, respectively.

The money might not have come directly from the mob. In early February, the news agency Rosbalt published a report claiming that the bribes didn’t come from Kalashov, but from from two businessmen: Oleg Sheikhametov and Dmitry Smychkovsky. The latter figure reportedly has extensive ties to the investigators involved in releasing Kalashov’s man, and he may have even attended one of Drymanov’s birthday parties. There’s currently a warrant out for Smychkovsky’s arrest, but he’s hiding in London. The Federal Security Service wants Drymanov investigated, but only Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin can order that, and he’s stonewalled the FSB.

Yours, Meduza