The Real Russia. Today.

Hypersonic weapons, tortured in prison, and fed up with London

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

This day in history. On July 24, 1990, the USSR lifted all restrictions on the sale of alcohol imposed five years earlier, effectively abandoning Mikhail Gorbachev's battle with suds and spirits.

• The Russian scientist who supposedly leaked hypersonic weapons intel didn't have high access to classified data
• Meduza explains what hypersonic weapons are, and how they could change the face of war
• The Yaroslavl prison torture scandal: a lawyer flees, officials say the victim ‘provoked’ the guards, and an investigator leaves for the army
• Four Russian businessmen who fled to London are coming home
• Police roughed up a disabled man and then threatened him, when he tried to report the attack
• The State Duma votes to hike Russia's VAT by two percent
• United Russia boots out a former Chechen senator who got high and fired off a handgun

Russia's hypersonic traitor? 🚀

Viktor Kudryavtsev, the 74-year-old scientist recently arrested for treason, had the lowest possible clearance for access to secret data, his son told the news agency Interfax. (Russia has three levels of access to state secrets: the very lowest is the third, which grants citizens access to merely confidential intelligence.) According to Yaroslav Kudryavtsev, his father was working on “the influence of turbulence on rocket movement,” which he says is “one of the most important [...] aspects of hypersonic speeds,” but this technology isn’t necessarily involved in the creation of new weapons, he claims.

Russia’s Federal Security Service is investigating the leak of classified information about the development of hypersonic weapons. Viktor Kudryavtsev — a scientist at the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, also known as TsNIIMash (a subsidiary of the Russian space agency Roscosmos) — has been arrested on treason charges. Officials also searched the office of Dmitry Paison, the director of the United Space Missile Corporation’s research and analysis center, and federal agents are studying another 12 potential suspects.

Supersonic Califraga Ballistic Expialidocious

Meduza asked Vasily Sychev, who reports on military news, to explain what hypersonic weapons are and how they might change the nature of armed conflicts.

Read the story: “Russia is investigating an intel leak about its fastest weapons. What are they?”

The torture scandal

👊 “The guards say they'll seek revenge”

On June 20, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a 10-minute video showing guards at a prison in Yaroslavl brutally torturing an inmate named Evgeny Makarov. The journalists got the footage from Makarov’s lawyer, Irina Biryukova. Three days later, the media discovered that she had fled the country, after learning of threats against her. Meduza correspondent Irina Kravtsova spoke to Biryukova to find out more about the case and why she had to leave Russia.

Read the interview: “The lawyer who outed the torture of a prisoner flees Russia, fearing for her family”

The relatives of one of the guards who appears in footage of inmate Evgeny Makarov being tortured at a prison in Yaroslavl are reportedly pressing charges against the newspaper Novaya Gazeta and the human rights organization “Public Verdict.”

According to the lawsuit, their relative “was allegedly training at the prison facility, and though he was actually present at the ‘educational work’ class when they tortured Makarov, he didn’t participate in the event.”

Federal Penitentiary Service deputy head Alexander Rudyi told the news agency Interfax on Monday that Makarov “committed 136 violations while in prison” and tried to “provoke” the guards. Rudyi added that prison officials nevertheless should not have tortured Makarov. “Our staff didn’t handle their duties entirely,” he admitted.

🛌 Rest easy, prisoners

Russian prison officials are scrambling to respond to a scandal in Yaroslavl, where recently leaked video footage shows more than a dozen guards torturing an inmate last summer. The Federal Penitentiary Service announced on Tuesday that commissions will be created at prisons nationwide to review mistreatment allegations from prisoners. The commissions will also review complaints filed in the past year from prisoners who say they were targeted with violence. The federal agency promises to carry out “strict disciplinary measures, including the dismissal [of guards],” wherever there's evidence to support prisoners' complaints.

🇷🇺 In the army now

Rodion Svirsky, the former Yaroslavl investigator who refused to open a criminal case in June 2017 when presented with evidence of Evgeny Makarov’s torture in prison, joined the army last November. The Federal Investigative Committee is currently reviewing Svirsky’s decision not to open a criminal case, following last week’s publication of shocking video footage of Makarov being tortured.

The prison in Yaroslavl has fired 17 guards captured on video torturing Makarov, and police have detained six of these men.

Bring 'em home, Boris 🏠

Four Russian businessmen who fled to London because of criminal prosecution at home will reportedly return to Moscow within the next few days, according to Russian Entrepreneurs' Rights Commissioner Boris Titov. In February, Titov published a list of more than two dozen names of businessmen who left Russia because of criminal cases against them. The Attorney General’s Office has agreed to withdraw international arrest warrants and “continue their investigations without detaining anyone” in cases related to Leonid Kurayev, Mikhail Shamanov, and Dmitry Pankov, as well as Sergey Kapchuk, who returned to Russia in June. The criminal case against a fourth businessman, Evgeny Petrov, has been closed.

Officials have also stated that another three figures on Titov’s list — Alexey Kuznetsov, Anatoly Laktionov, and Yuri Pogiba — shouldn’t be taken into custody, if they appear for questioning by police. It’s unknown if they will now return to Russia.

Titov’s list initially had 16 names on it, but that number soon more than doubled. According to Titov, Russian businessmen in London started complaining about pressure from the British authorities and organized criminals, after the poisoning of the former double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter.

A rough misunderstanding ♿️

A disabled man named Maxim Bezdenezhnykh living in Bratsk says a local police officer attacked him after a misunderstanding about a misplaced walkie talkie. When the officers found the device in his wheelchair (where a neighbor had put it, after finding it), one of the policemen hit Bezdenezhnykh in the head twice. He tried to report the incident, but local law enforcement apparently refused to register his complaint.

After Bezdenezhnykh turned to the Investigative Committee, a police officer allegedly came to his home and threatened to charge him with insulting a state official, if he didn’t withdraw his police report. Bezdenezhnykh refused. Local investigators are still reviewing his case and deciding whether or not to open a criminal case.

Up up and away! 📈

State Duma deputies have adopted the third and final reading of legislation that will raise Russia’s Value Added Tax (VAT) from 18 to 20 percent. The only party to support the initiative was United Russia, whose members recently forced through the first reading of controversial legislation to raise Russia’s retirement age. Once the Federation Council and President Putin approve the legislation, Russia’s VAT will jump two percent, effective on January 1, 2019.

The higher tax is expected to net the federal government an additional 633.5 billion rubles ($10.1 billion) in 2019, 678 billion rubles ($10.8 billion) in 2020, and 728 billion rubles ($11.6 billion) in 2021. This revenue will help fund the government’s efforts to fulfill Putin’s latest “May Orders” to boost Russian life expectancy and reduce poverty. Economists believe the project’s total price tag is at least 8 trillion rubles ($127.6 billion).

You're out, Umar 👎

Almost a year after firing two rounds into the ceiling of his Four Seasons hotel room, former Chechen Senator Umar Dzhabrailov has been booted out of the political party United Russia. On Tuesday, Dzhabrailov expressed his regret about the decision, noting that the party’s charter doesn’t require his expulsion because of his criminal record.

In August 2017, Dzhabrailov was charged with hooliganism, after firing a gun in his hotel room while under the influence of narcotics. In November, he was convicted and fined 500,000 rubles ($7,970).

Yours, Meduza