Court declared arrest illegal, but only after her death

Alia, the ex-wife of venture investor Alexander Galitsky, committed suicide on February 7 in a detention center in Istra, near Moscow. Before her death, she recorded a video in which she accused her ex-husband of sympathizing with Ukraine.

ASTRA answers the main questions about the death of Alia Galitskaya. How did Alia manage to commit suicide in the isolation ward? Who does Alia mention in her suicide note, and why? Is it true that Galitsky has a secret Russian business that supports the war against Ukraine?

How did Galitskaya die?

46-year-old Alia Galitskaya was taken to the Istra detention center on February 4. The woman was not expecting to be arrested: “She was brought there by a lawyer to testify. Not to be imprisoned. She wasn’t worried,” recalls a friend of Alia’s, who requested anonymity.

“A few hours before her arrest, Alia was sitting in a cafe in Moscow, drinking coffee, unaware of what was about to happen,” Alia’s lawyer, Dmitry Emelyanov, told ASTRA.

Galitskaya was detained as part of a criminal case involving extortion on a large scale. According to the investigation, she allegedly demanded $150 million from her ex-husband, investor Alexander Galitsky, threatening to publish compromising evidence against him. Galitsky is an influential venture capital investor, known for his involvement in the development of early Wi-Fi and VPN technologies in the 1990s through his company, Elvis Plus.

On February 6, the Istra City Court chose a preventive measure of two months’ detention for Alia. Three days later, she was scheduled to be transferred to SIZO-10 in Mozhaisk, Moscow Region.

Literally the day after her arrest, on February 7, at around 20:00, Galitskaya tied her stockings into a knot in cell number 8, tied them to a metal bunk bed, and hanged herself, a law enforcement source told ASTRA.

The suicide was captured on a surveillance camera, ASTRA was told by two sources who personally saw the footage. However, it wasn’t until an hour later that the detention center’s duty officer discovered Galitskaya’s body. The ambulance arrived at the scene at 21:50 and confirmed her death.

Was marriage to the investor real?

Alia and Alexander Galitsky had a registered marriage in the United States. When exactly there was a rift in the relationship between Aliah and Alexander, it is unclear, but in January 2023, Aliah publicly talked about the divorce in the chat of residents of Novorizhskoe highway. She asked neighbors for contacts of “psychological self-help communities”. Aliah wrote: “You need to believe in yourself, understand how to choose lawyers and where to live.” At the same time, she was using chat rooms to find a way out of the ” Karpman Triangle — a codependent relationship.

The couple officially divorced in March 2025. They have two daughters, aged 12 and 9, both of whom were born in the United States and have obtained U.S. citizenship (and a foreign transliteration of their last names on their Russian passports). After the divorce, a California court ruled that the children should live with their mother. Galitskaya and her daughters were living in the Moscow region. However, in late May, according to Galitskaya, her ex-husband picked up the girls from school and took them away without informing her. After that, she reported the kidnapping to the relevant authorities in the United States.

After Alia Galitskaya’s death, pro-government publications reported that her marriage to the investor was a “joke,” as stated by the investor’s lawyer, Anna Butyrina.

Alia’s lawyer, Dmitry Yemelyanov, calls the phrase “a joke” cynical: “For some people, it may be a joke marriage. For Alia, it was a serious marriage. She lived with this man for almost 15 years. She gave birth to two children for him. It is blasphemous to call it a joke. The fact that the marriage was conducted in America does not change anything. The children were born in America and received their birth certificates. This is not a joke about their birth. It’s the same with marriage.”

“There was a marriage — there is a marriage certificate and there is a divorce certificate. If it was a joke, where is the divorce certificate? There are copies in the lawyers’ offices and in the court,” says ASTRA, Alia’s friend.

According to the bot leaks, the Galitskys traveled abroad together more than thirty times during their marriage. During the process of determining the children’s place of residence, dozens of family photos were presented in court, including joint trips, home videos, and professional shots. “It’s an ordinary family, just like any other,” says Alia’s lawyer, Yemelyanov.

According to Alia’s friend, Galitsky forbade her from posting joint photos and videos: “He always asked her not to share their joint photos. At home, while traveling. She respected his wishes. This ban extended to all her friends.”

A separate tabloid thesis is that Alia allegedly “on her own initiative” took the surname Galitskaya. The deceased’s lawyer, however, claims that the change of surname was officially registered through the registry office many years ago: “She changed her surname, I think, back in 2010. She was Galitskaya everywhere, traveling with him and their children, and everyone saw it. Was it a surprise for him? Well, that’s ridiculous.”

According to Emelyanov, discussions about the “non-seriousness” of the marriage began at the time of the property conflict.

“Now that it’s come to the division of property, it’s certainly very interesting to recognize this marriage as a joke and remove the grounds for property division. That’s what they’re doing. <…> People have been married for 15 years and living together. It’s strange to say that one party has no rights,” the lawyer says.

Who else does Galitskaya blame for her death?

Alia Galitskaya left a short suicide note in her cell, in which she blamed her death not only on Alexander Galitsky, but also on her new husband, Nikolai Bolgov.

Nikolai Bolgov testified at the trial on the children’s place of residence, but unexpectedly took the investor Galitsky’s side, ASTRA found out. Lawyer Yemelyanov says that Bolgov gave the court a negative characterization of Alia.

According to the deceased’s friend, Alia and Bolgov’s relationship was complicated:

“Nikolai is a Judas and a gigolo. I can’t call him anything else. She wanted love, and she was tired of endless deceptions. So she invented this ‘prince’ for herself. He knew everything about her. And she wanted to love. And she was blind. He did a lot of bad things to her. And she forgave him. It’s hard for a woman to believe in the treachery of her beloved. And the cherry on top was his testimony against her in court for the children. It was beyond comprehension. But it didn’t break her. She was a strong little tin soldier. She knew that there were people who loved her and believed in her.”

In the chat of residents of the Novorizhsk highway, there are messages from Alia, where she is looking for a place for Bolgov’s business and trying to sell snow removal equipment that apparently belonged to a man. “He came to Alia with nothing at all. She tried to set up a business for him. She invested money in him,” says Alia’s friend.

According to the woman, Alia and Bolgov’s romance was progressing rapidly: “They were already making plans to take care of Alexander [Galitsky] when he became infirm, which was a bit of a utopian idea.” Bolgov did not respond to ASTRA’s inquiries.

Galitsky’s lawyer, Anna Butyrina, said that the investor allegedly gave his ex-wife a house in Istra near Moscow for the wedding. “They lived in this house together. Then we moved to another one. After the end of the relationship, she returned to this house. Perhaps you can consider it a gift. But this is their old home, ” Yemelyanov, the lawyer of the deceased, retorts.

Against the backdrop of the property division courts, Alia posted ads for the sale of a house in Istra. This included a hectare of land, a five-bedroom mansion with an area of 1,200 square meters, a SPA area with a hammam and sauna, a swimming pool, two ponds, and even a helipad. In some of these ads, Alia included the contact number of her new husband, Nikolai Bolgov.

Alexander Galitsky is particularly fond of cottage settlements in the Istra region near Moscow. According to ASTRA’s calculations, the entrepreneur has owned at least four mansions in the area at various times.

The new husband is not the only one who unexpectedly spoke out against Aliah at the child custody trial. Aliah’s older sister Jamila also testified against her. “With lamentations: “I love her — BUT…” She tried to bring the whole family under schizophrenia and suicide of her older brother — a controversial, very controversial issue, “ says a friend of Alia Galitskaya.

According to the deceased’s friend, Jamila is a tarot reader on the internet and does not have a regular job, as does her husband. With Alia’s assistance, she purchased a house and a car, underwent plastic surgery, and regularly vacationed by the sea during the winter, according to her friend. The nature of their relationship is unknown, but the deceased does not mention Jamila in her suicide note.

In an interview with ASTRA, Galitskaya’s relatives refused to comment on Alia’s suicide or her sister’s testimony.

Did Alia have any dirt on Galitsky?

Shortly before her death, Alia Galitskaya recorded a video message to Vladimir Putin. The video was published after her death by pro-government journalist Anastasia Kashevarova.

In the video, Alia says that after they started living together and had their daughters, she found out that Galitsky had another family and an official marriage in Russia — this is about the investor’s first wife, Albina, with whom he has not officially divorced. Alia claims that her ex-husband is putting pressure on her using “financial resources and connections,” and is also turning their daughters against Russia. Because of this, Galitskaya is asking Vladimir Putin to intervene in the situation.

“My father openly says that he’s in favor of Ukraine, and he considers Zelensky a hero because he’s fighting against such a large country. I have audio recordings of his words. He supports the radical nationalist regime in Ukraine. It hurts me to hear him comparing the Russian president to a fascist leader,” Alia says in the video.

A friend of Alia’s in a conversation with ASTRA confirms that Galitsky really does not like Putin. Alia recorded Galitsky’s conversations about politics on a dictaphone: “And he knew about it,“ says her friend.

Galitsky’s defense has not commented on his ex-wife’s accusations. Lawyer Dmitry Emelyanov claims that he only learned about the recording after his client’s death: “It came as a surprise to me. She didn’t inform me that she was recording a video… If she said something, it means she was confident about it. However, it’s up to law enforcement agencies to determine the accuracy of this information.”

In addition to Kashevarova, Galitskaya managed to contact the editorial office of the Cheka-OGPU before her death, according to the project’s journalists. After the woman’s death, the Cheka-OGPU began publishing information about Galitsky’s secret Russian business.

How does Galitsky invest in Ukraine and make money from the war?

Officially, after 2022, Galitsky sold off all his Russian assets. However, before that, Galitsky was deeply embedded in Russian government projects.

The Project publication previously referred to Galitsky as one of the creators of the (honest sign) Chestny Znak digital marking system. Although it is formally a government-run system for monitoring goods through QR codes, it is operated by a private entity called the Center for Advanced Technologies. The Project referred to this product labeling system as a “hidden tax” imposed on Russians by a “group of high-ranking officials and oligarchs.”

At the start, shares in Honest Sign were owned by the structures of Galitsky, Rostec and the oligarch Alisher Usmanov [already during Galitsky’s divorce, Usmanov’s newspaper Kommersant began deleting publications about the court proceedings of former spouses-approx. ed].

Later, Galitsky sold his stake in Chestny Znak to Gazprombank.

Since 2016, the Federal Tax Service, which was then headed by Mikhail Mishustin, has been responsible for implementing the system. It is believed that Galitsky is close to Mishustin. In 2010, after Mishustin was appointed head of the Federal Tax Service, Galitsky’s companies began receiving contracts for the digitalization of the agency. During the same period, Mishustin’s former son-in-law, Alexander Udodov, became a shareholder in Galitsky’s venture capital fund, Almaz Capital.

After the start of the war with Ukraine, Galitsky’s Almaz Capital fund announced the closure of its Moscow office and the termination of investments in Russia. Currently, the fund is helping Ukrainian companies “survive the war that is devastating their country.” Despite this, the billionaire has not severed ties with Russia. According to leaks, he continues to fly to his homeland on a regular basis.

Moreover, the company Spetsproekt-2 remains under the entrepreneur’s control. In 2024, it was sanctioned by the United States for supporting the Russian military-industrial complex.

Before the sanctions, the founder of Special Project 2 was Vlada Bobrova, Galitsky’s assistant and his new mistress, according to the VChK-OGPU. Bobrova worked for Galitsky’s Almaz Capital fund, but ASTRA noticed that her page was removed from the fund’s website after the scandal.

When Spetsproekt-2 was sanctioned by the U.S., Bobrova was replaced in the founding team by Alexander Semin, Galitsky’s lawyer from his company Elvis-Plus Group, according to the VChK-OGPU. ASTRA’s analysis of the leaks confirms this version. Semin was not just a former employee of Galitsky; he was registered in the neighboring house of Galitsky’s first (official) wife in Zelenograd.

Another co-founder of Special Project 2 is a possible nominee. This is Alexey Spitsyn, a Muscovite. A former warehouse manager, Spitsyn has never earned more than 90,000 rubles per month. In 2025, Spitsyn already had a deposit in the Round Bank in Moscow, the interest on which earned him more than 1.2 million rubles, ASTRA noted.

Galitsky cheated on Alia?

It is unknown when Galitsky and Vlada Bobrova’s relationship began. The fact that Galitsky is dating his assistant is confirmed by her personal foundation, Ark. It is registered in a mansion in the elite Millennium Park village near Moscow. This mansion belongs to Galitsky, as evidenced by court documents related to the division of property.

According to the leaks, in 2021, Galitsky rented a hotel room at least five times in a building next to the Almaz Capital office where Bobrova worked. In 2019, he used his personal phone and email to order 37,000 rubles worth of sex toys from a sex shop, which was paid for in cash and delivered to a hotel near the Almaz Capital office. It’s worth noting that we know from court documents that Galitsky owns apartments in Moscow’s Patriarshie, Yakimanka, and Sretenka districts. It’s less than a half-hour drive from the Almaz Capital office.

According to Alia’s friend, she had suspected infidelity.

“She believed him. And then she found confirmation of his adventures. She had suspected Vlada [Bobrova] for a long time. Of course, he denied everything. It was painful. We didn’t dwell on the details; we tried to switch focus.”

Galitsky himself carefully conceals information about his personal life. Alia’s friend claims that, in addition to his official ex-wife, Albina, Alexander Galitsky had another marriage and an adult daughter who lives in the United States.

In addition, Galitsky has a son from his marriage to Albina, who lives in the Netherlands and works in the field of artificial organ development. According to the deceased’s friend, Galitsky is particularly proud of this son.

Was Alia placed in isolation on Galitsky’s orders?

Alia was detained on the eve of Alexander Galitsky’s birthday, which was February 9. The Cheka-OGPU claims that the investor organized Alia’s criminal prosecution with the help of Alfa-Bank’s security service.

More than two weeks after Alia Galitskaya was found dead in a cell at the Istra detention center, the Moscow Regional Court overturned the decision to detain her and dismissed the case. The court of appeal recognized that the measure of restraint had been chosen in violation of the law. “We have been talking about procedural violations from the very beginning. The court has confirmed this. It is a pity that Alia will never know about it,” lawyer Dmitry Yemelyanov wrote on his Telegram channel.

After the arrest was lifted, a private ruling was issued against the judge of the Istra City Court, Fyodor Grigoryev, and he was subsequently dismissed. In a conversation with the Telegram channel “112,” Grigoryev stated that the decision to arrest Galitskaya was not made on his initiative.

According to Grigoriev, the case was initially assigned to another judge, Irina Kukushkina. Later, it was transferred to him. He claims that he was informed that the decision to take him into custody had already been “agreed upon,” including with the leadership of the Moscow Regional Court.

Grigoriev claims that he initially refused to take Galitskaya into custody. As a result, a disciplinary investigation was launched against him. Eventually, the judge issued an arrest warrant, which was overturned 12 days later, and he was held accountable.

“At that moment, I realized that I had been leaked, and they wanted to pin everything on me,” he said.

According to Grigoriev, there is a practice in the courts of the Moscow region where judges are given instructions on high-profile cases, and a specific judge is subsequently held accountable.

“It was accumulating”

Alia’s close friends say that the legal proceedings and the closed custody battle over her daughters led to her deep depression. According to her lawyer, Dmitry Emelyanov, Alia was deeply affected by the events, describing her as “very emotional, very sensitive, and empathetic.” She was someone who “wanted to help everyone and cared deeply about them.”

Alia’s friend recalls that it became impossible to communicate with her children, who had been literally stolen from her: security at the school, lack of access to the gated community. Contact with her ex-husband was almost exclusively through lawyers. “She was blocked,” says the friend of the deceased.

“At the same time, she held on and fought, and she believed in the triumph of justice. She supported herself with sports, hardening, and going into the snow or ice-cold water after a sauna. She also worked with a psychologist. Her meetings with her were never depressing.”

On the day of her death, Emelyanov spent several hours with her, discussing their defense strategy. They planned to appeal and take further steps. “She was making plans,” he says. In the evening, he left for home. A couple of hours later, he received a call from the investigator, informing him that Alia had committed suicide.

On February 9, Alexander Galitsky was summoned for questioning in the case of his ex-wife’s suicide. After the questioning, he was released. The Moscow court dismissed the Galitskys’ application regarding the custody of their children and the payment of child support after the divorce. The children will remain with their father.

On February 13, Alia was buried in the Orenburg region. The woman was buried under her maiden name, with the epitaph “Alia Kurmambayeva” engraved on her tombstone.

Author: Anna Snegireva