There is no "operational data", but there is a sentence

Julia Latynina: In the place of any member of the government, I would now think how to dump from this government

The court sentenced the ex-Minister of Economic Development of Alexei Ulyukaev to eight years in a maximum security colony. This sentence followed the day after President Putin, answering a press conference on the question of this process, said that Sechin “did not violate the law” when he did not come to court, and that “enough materials were collected”. The court, as you can assume, found in this statement a reliable landmark.

Ulyukaeva was an enchanting sentence.

With this sentence, the randomness and unpredictability of the elite regime has increased exponentially. It is by no means the 37th year in the country, it’s ridiculous to talk about it. In the 37th, when the directors were sitting, their ballets did not go to Bolshoi, and when the ministers of the government were accused of sabotage, they did not use the court to appeal to public opinion.

But with this sentence, the long -standing Russian proverb “Don’t be reduced from prison and from Suma” for the Russian elite, which had long been bouncing from prison and Suma, a completely practical meaning. In the place of any member of the government, I would now think how to dump from this government.

Compare. On April 27, 2017, General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Denis Sugrobov received 22 years in a strict regime for provocation of bribes. And his accomplice General Kolesnikov, under unknown circumstances, flew out of the window of the building of the Investigative Committee. The organizer of the case against him, General Sugrobov called the then first deputy head of the USB of the FSB Oleg Feoktistov.

I do not protect Svugrobov: he is a classic representative of the modern security forces. But Svugrobov was imprisoned because he tried to stick money to someone.

And what is what Svugrobov did is different from what the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin did?

Alexey Ulyukaev is not a saint. Maybe I asked for money. He hinted, winked, complained that, they say, they worked on a deal, but it would be nice to encourage and support.

For this it could be fired. One could come to Putin and complain. It was possible to send him in three letters: the hardware weight of Ulyukaev and Sechin is incomparable, and the deal was closed.

But Sechin said something like that, which is why the country's leadership could not be dismissed. Obviously, they put some operational data on the table, and the president said that he trusted operational data.

We were publicly told that Ulyukaev extorted a bribe from Sechin, that there was a wiretap, that the operation was carried out for almost a year, that they listened to other government members, etc.

And in court it turned out that there were no “operational data”. It turned out that Sechin personally invited Ulyukaev to the Rosneft office and led him, under jokes, a basket of sausage. That no wiretap, on which Ulyukaev asks for money, or at least hints at them, no. And there is a story about how, after closing the deal, Sichin and Ulyukaev played Goa in billiards, and there, de Ulyukaev showed Sichin two fingers.

Sorry, but how does this differ from the provocation of a bribe? Probably, the understanding of such nuances is only available to Oleg Feoktistov, who was directly related to the persecution of both Svugrobov and Ulyukaev.

The testimony was so ridiculous that Sechin did not even appear in court, despite the four -time challenge.

For this shame, Ulyukaev, in fact, received eight years. But after the laughing stock at the trial, the hardware weight of Igor Sechin returned to normal.

No, I perfectly understand that if it were in America and there were at least indirect evidence, then Ulyukaev would really be to blame. Imagine: the American head of the department hints at the "two -legged"! Of course he would have sat down. But we are not in Chicago. We are in Russia.

We have in the road fund, as Navalny just noted, so much money is spent annually that they can be built 13 thousand km of high -speed highway. And all these money are plundered. Our drugs for cancer patients are purchased at a five -time price, literally earning on death. We have Plato.

And against this background, two fingers, allegedly shown by Ulyukaev, - how to say that? - Do not inspire.

Of course, everything can be explained. Khodorkovsky was imprisoned because he went against Putin. Participants in the "swamp business" are planted because they went out into the streets. Yevtushenkov was dispossessed because he supported Medvedev. Leonid Melamed was torn to get Chubais. Etc. etc.

But the problem is that until recently, any member of the Russian elite was walking in Curshel, lived in Miami and was inviolable either in the West or in Russia.

And now he is sitting at the premiere of Nureyev in Bolshoi and thinks that in the West he is in the list of “Kremlin oligrahs”, and in Russia he can rattle at any moment, like Serebrennikov and Ulyukaev.