The Real Russia. Today.

More details about the Russian film crew killed in Africa, finally some good vibes about the West, and a daring embezzlement scheme

Thursday, August 2, 2018

This day in history. On August 10, 1996, Russia executed Sergey Golovkin for the murder of 11 people in Moscow between 1986 and 1992. He was the last person put to death in Russia before the national moratorium established by Boris Yeltsin.

• The public learns more about the documentary film that got three Russian journalists killed in Africa
• As Putin's approval rating slips, Russians are more positive about the West than at any time since the annexation of Crimea
• A hacker group that claims to have stolen from Hillary Clinton was also digging in the bank accounts of several prominent Russian right-wing politicians
• A Federal Protective Service major general allegedly tried to embezzle money from a project to remodel one of Putin's presidential homes
• The 74-year-old Russian scientist charged with treason allegedly passed secret information to a Belgian institute for fluid dynamics
• For the first time ever, Russia acquits a draftee charged with evading non-military service
• Three Russian biathletes agree to compete for Ukraine’s national team
• Arbitration court dismisses lawsuit by major homeopathic veterinary drug manufacturer against Russian Academy of Sciences
• Amid privacy concerns, Russia’s federal censor says it will review Burger King’s mobile app sometime next year
• European University at St. Petersburg passes state inspection, possibly paving way to reclaiming education license
• Federal Tax Service publishes open data from more than 2.5 million Russian companies
• The Navalny brothers collect more than four million rubles in compensation for ‘unjust verdicts’ in the Yves Rocher case

Russia's deadly Africa documentary 🎬

The three Russian journalists killed in the Central African Republic on July 30 apparently died while trying to resist attackers wearing turbans who wanted to seize their vehicle, according to the country’s Communications Ministry.

In a statement posted on Facebook, officials said the attackers spoke neither French nor Sango (CAR’s two national languages). The journalists’ driver was also shot and wounded, but he survived and fled. They were attacked roughly 32 kilometers (20 miles) outside the town of Sibut. The only identification reportedly discovered on the journalists’ bodies was a single “blogger” card. A Sibut deputy official told The Associated Press that the journalists “were kidnapped by about 10 men, all turbaned and speaking only Arabic.”

On July 30, reporter Orkhan Dzhemal, director Alexander Rastorguyev, and cameraman Kirill Radchenko were murdered in the Central African Republic, while collecting documentary evidence of Russian mercenaries’ activities in the country. The “Laurel Wreath” Russian national film award council announced on August 2 that it will posthumously honor Rastorguyev for his contributions to documentary filmmaking. The council voted unanimously to make him a 2018 laureate.

⛏️ Prigozhin's gold mines

According to the newsletter The Bell, the journalists planned to film the giant Ndassima gold mine, which is reportedly being developed by the company “Lobaye Invest” and guarded by the “Wagner” private military company — both companies associated with Evgeny Prigozhin (the same catering magnate with close Kremlin ties and his own “troll factory”). Lobaye Invest supposedly “represents Russia’s interests” in CAR. The journalists apparently planned to meet with a member of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic, who was supposed to help them get access to the mines.

On Thursday, August 2, Russia’s Investigative Committee questioned Anastasia Gorshkova, the deputy chief editor of the “Investigations Management Center,” which organized the three journalists’ trip to CAR. According to Andrey Konyakhin, the head of the center, Gorshkova has been named as a witness in the investigation into the three deaths. Russian officials say they are exploring the possibility of sending “experienced investigators and forensic experts to conduct separate investigative actions.”

Friends again! 📈

As federal officials push ahead with the unpopular decision to raise the country’s retirement age, Russians’ attitudes about the West are more positive than at any time since Moscow annexed Crimea. According to a new poll by the Levada Center, July 2018 marked the first time since March 2014 that positive attitudes about the United States and European Union outweighed negative attitudes: 42 percent versus 40 percent (for the U.S.) and 42 percent versus 38 percent (for the EU). As recently as May 2018, support for the West was dramatically lower: 20 percent for the United States and 26 percent for the European Union.

As Russians’ views about the West turn rosier, approval ratings for the country’s leaders have slipped to post-Crimea lows. President Vladimir Putin’s job approval rating is now 67 percent, and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s rating has fallen to 31 percent (a historic low).

Stealing from the right 💸

The hacker group “Lurk” reportedly stole large sums of money from several prominent members of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, according to the lawyer for Konstantin Kozlovsky, who was one of the group’s leaders. Case evidence shared with the website Znak.com apparently shows that hackers took 4 million rubles ($63,000) from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, 99 million rubles ($1.6 million) from Igor Lebedev, and almost 1.7 million euros (nearly $2 million) from Vadim Dengin.

Police detained members of the so-called “Lurk” hacker group in mid-2016 on charges of using the “Lurk” virus to steal roughly 3 billion rubles ($47.2 million) from banks and commercial organizations.

In August 2017, Kozlovsky reportedly declared in court that he acted “under the command of Russian Federal Security Service agents” when he supposedly participated in the hacking of the U.S. Democratic National Committee and stole Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Stealing money from the big guy 🚧

Russia’s Investigative Committee has charged Federal Protective Service Major General Igor Vasiliev with embezzling money allocated to remodel the presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, sources told the news agency Rosbalt. In charge of organizing engineering and technical support for the construction project, Vasiliev allegedly conspired with the owners of the Baltstroy holding company and several other high-ranking FSO officials to steal 1.5 billion rubles ($23.7 million) from the government by overcharging for air conditioners and roofing.

Police have reportedly detained another three suspects in the case: Baltstroy co-owners Dmitry Mikhalchenko and Dmitry Sergeyev, as well as Andrey Kaminov, the head of the “Ateks” federal state unitary enterprise. In July 2017, federal investigators classified the case as “top secret,” stating that the details of the remodeling work on the presidential residence constitute state secrets.

Treasonous fluid dynamics 🕵️

Viktor Kudryavtsev, the 74-year-old Russian scientist charged with treason, allegedly passed secret information to the Belgian von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, according to a report filed by the Federal Security Service. Evgeny Smirnov, the “Team 29” lawyer who is defending Kudryavtsev, told the magazine RBC on Thursday, August 2, that the FSB report is the only evidence against his client. The Belgian institute also had an agreement with the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering (TsNIIMash), where Kudryavtsev worked. According to Smirnov, federal agents have questioned several dozen people in the case, including Vladimir Lapygin (Kudryavtsev’s former supervisor), who was previously convicted of treason in a separate investigation.

Police detained Viktor Kudryavtsev on July 20. Journalists initially reported that he was suspected of sharing secret intelligence about Russia’s hypersonic weapons program with operatives in a NATO country.

He fought the law and he won ⚖️

A district court in Volgograd has become the first court in Russia to acquit a draftee charged with evading non-military service. Konstantin Titov was assigned to work at an assisted living community for the elderly and disabled, but the state failed to provide him with dormitory housing, as required by the law. Titov faced a fine of 80,000 rubles ($1,265) or half a year’s salary, 480 hours community service, or six months in jail. Local prosecutors say they will appeal the verdict.

According to the newspaper Kommersant, Russian courts have tried 30 people for evading alternative civilian service over the past 10 years, convicting all of them, until Konstantin Titov.

Ukrainebound 🤸‍♀️

Three Russian biathletes — Anastasia Rasskazova, Ekaterina Bekh, and Oksana Moskalenko — have agreed to compete on Ukraine’s national team, after an aborted effort to play in Belarus. According to Vladimir Brynzak, the head of Ukraine’s Biathlon Federation, the athletes’ parents are Ukrainians and they’re now in the process of obtaining Ukrainian citizenship. Their coach, Ilya Lopukhov, is also relocating to Ukraine. All three women recently competed in Ukraine’s Junior Championship Summer Biathlon, and only Rasskazova has previously represented Russia in an international tournament.

Getting litigious about homeopathy 🍵

The Moscow Arbitration Court has dismissed a lawsuit by AlexAnn, one of Russia’s biggest manufacturers of homeopathic veterinary drugs. The company claimed that a February 2017 memorandumpublished by the Russian Academy of Sciences “on the pseudo-scientificity of homeopathy” has hurt its sales. AlexAnn demanded that the academy retract the memo and pay 30 million rubles ($474,000) in compensation for lost business.

The Russian Academy of Sciences argued that AlexAnn failed to provide evidence for the effectiveness of its homeopathic treatments and did not demonstrate that the memo caused a decline in sales. The memorandum, moreover, doesn’t represent the academy’s official position, and was merely issued as the opinion of several experts at the institution.

Russia’s National Council for Homeopathy criticized the February 2017 memo, calling it a hired attempt “to return us to the era of general prohibitions and nationwide condemnations.” Russia’s Health Ministry has created a working group to study the future of homeopathy, and State Duma deputies have drafted legislationthat would ban advertisements for such treatments and require manufacturers to alert consumers that their products have no clinically proven medicinal properties.

Regulatory adventures

🍔 Have it your way

Russia’s federal censor, Roskomnadzor, says it will review Burger King’s mobile app sometime next year, following complaints that the fast food company is “spying” on customers by recording the screens of their mobile devices through the Appsee analytics platform. In a statement published on August 2, Roskomnadzor explained that it lacks the resources to respond more quickly, but the agency says it has appealed to other law enforcement groups to investigate the matter sooner.

On July 11, a Russian developer accused Burger King of secretly recording users’ screens, supposedly including bank data and other personal information (even when not using the Burger King app). The company has denied these allegations, and Appsee’s privacy policy prohibits app publishers from sharing any personal or sensitive data with the platform.

🎓 European University on the road to recovery?

The European University at St. Petersburg has passed a state inspection, possibly paving the way to reclaiming its education license. Last year, Russia’s Federal Education and Science Supervision Agency (Rosobrnadzor) had the school’s license annulled, and city officials forced the university to vacate its building. Rebranded as a research institute, European University has tried repeatedly to reclaim its education license, most recently in July 2018.

According to the newspaper Kommersant, state inspectors reviewed the school between July 31 and August 1, and found no safety violations that would prevent it from re-acquiring its license. Rosobrnadzor officials say this is “one of the steps” in the licensing process, and a final decision might come in early September.

The website Fontanka has reported that the change of heart could be tied to former Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin taking over as head of Russia’s Accounts Chamber. Kudrin reportedly spoke to officials in the Federal Emergency Management Agency and apparently negotiated a more “loyal” treatment of the European University.

On June 20, Rosobrnadzor refused to re-accredit the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, known as “Shaninka.” Critics say the government’s actions against European University and Shaninka are part of a campaign to crack down on independent Russian schools with significant foreign ties.

🏢 Mysterious leaders

The Federal Tax Service has published open data from more than 2.5 million Russian companies (excluding defense contractors and major taxpayers), and two of the country’s biggest employers on the list are largely unknown businesses: the Moscow-based transport company “Express” (with 697,500 listed on staff) and the Tatarstan-based IT company “GorillaSmart” (with a supposed workforce of 638,900 employees). Spokespeople for both businesses told the magazine RBC that these figures are completely inaccurate: Express CEO Dmitry Krasulnikov says he’s the company’s only employee, and GorillaSmart CEO Rishat Zaikorv says his organization is currently inactive.

According to the agency’s records, almost half (41.5 percent) of Russian companies have just one employee, 15.3 percent have no staff, and 10 percent have just two employees. Just 19.5 percent of Russian companies (489,916) had more than five people listed on staff. According to Federal Tax Service’s numbers, Gazprom employs 469,600 people, Sberbank has 310,200 people on staff, Rostec has 512,000 employees, and the Russian Railways — the country’s biggest employer — has 737,400 workers.

Navalny's payday 💰

Anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny revealed on August 2 that the Russian government paid him and his brother “more than four million rubles” ($63,150) in July to compensate them for the “unjust verdicts” in the Yves Rocher case. In October 2017, the ECHR ordered the Russian government to pay Alexey and Oleg Navalny 76,000 euros and 460,000 rubles in compensation for what the court determined to be an unfair trial that landed Oleg in prison for 3.5 years and sentenced Alexey to as many years of probation for supposedly embezzling several million rubles from an Eastern European subsidiary of the cosmetics company Yves Rocher. Oleg went free from prison in late June 2018.

In April 2018, the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Court refused to overturn the “Yves Rocher” verdict, and simultaneously concluded that the case should be reopened to consider the “new facts.” Navalny’s lawyer didn’t want the investigation reopened, however, and has pointed out that the last ECHR ruling to force a retrial of a case against Alexey Navalny (the “Kirovles” case) resulted in a verdict that was identical to the first.

💔 No salvation in the Kirovles case

On August 2, the Moscow City Court upheld a lower court’s decision to extend Alexey Navalny’s probation in the Kirovles case, though it lifted a requirement that he must report to a probation officer at the Federal Penitentiary Service every Monday. Local prison officials got a judge to extend Navalny’s probation to July 8, 2019, in light of several short jail terms he’s served in recent years for minor offenses related to unpermitted protests.

Navalny’s lawyer has warned that this extension will only further delay her client’s ability to run for elected office (currently, Navalny’s criminal record makes him ineligible for elections for another 11 years), and it gives the Federal Penitentiary Service more opportunities to appeal to have Navalny’s sentence converted to a prison sentence. (The agency has repeatedly filed such requests, but the courts have always rejected them.)

Yours, Meduza