In Nizhny Tagil, a husband and wife were detained for “treason.” They worked at a defense plant

In order not to miss the main materials of "Cold", subscribe to our instagram and telegram .

Two security officials with St. George ribbons on their helmets lay a young man in a black down jacket face down on the floor. When the detainee's hands are wrung behind his back, a man in civilian clothes comes up to him and shows him some kind of ID in a red cover.

“Read carefully. Do you know why we are here? asks the man in civilian clothes. At this time, the security forces are trying to handcuff the detainee and shouting: “Relax your hands, relax your hands!”

Detention removes one of the security forces. It takes place on the front porch of a residential building.

After that, the security forces lead the detainee along the entrance, approaching the door of the apartment. Apparently, they themselves open the door of the apartment with his key. "The wife is alone there?" one of the security officials asks at the threshold. Then he opens the door and shines a bright lantern into the corridor.

In the next frame, the detainee is already sitting on the couch with a blank A4 sheet on his lap. Gluing. A man, already without a down jacket and handcuffs, is sitting on the same sofa with a girl.

Have you passed on information to a foreign country? a voice-over addresses her.
— Yes.
- What was this information: a drawing or some other document?
- Blueprints.
- How much money did you receive after providing confidential assistance to a foreign intelligence officer?
- In the hundreds area.
What were you planning to spend the money on?
- Just live.

Then the security forces take the detained young people out of the entrance and put them into a white minibus. with reference to the FSB A one and a half minute video with their detention and interrogation on April 4 was published by the media . Probably, in reality, the conversation developed differently than on the video: there are several rough glues in the video at once. But, according to the press service of the FSB of Russia in the Sverdlovsk region, this is exactly what the detention of a young couple from Nizhny Tagil looked like.

Why were these people detained?

According to the official version , the couple was detained "for espionage in the interests of Ukraine at a military-industrial complex enterprise in Nizhny Tagil." Both were arrested under the article "Treason". “The spouses, for a monetary reward, handed over to the special services of Ukraine information of a military-technical nature that could be used against the RF Armed Forces. During a search at the place of residence of the suspects, “objects of espionage activity” were seized,” TASS wrote. At the same time, the local edition TagilCity.ru reports that the arrest took place at the end of March.

The TagilCity.ru edition, citing its sources, writes that the married couple, while working at Uralvagonzavod, made copies of the documentation, and later handed them over to representatives of Ukraine. The detained man, as the newspaper writes, at the end of 2022, as a process engineer, participated in a scientific and practical conference of young specialists at Uralvagonzavod. He is also known as a photographer working in Nizhny Tagil, Yekaterinburg and Moscow.

Last week, was detained the Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich in Yekaterinburg. He is accused of collecting information about one of the enterprises of the Russian military-industrial complex, which constitutes a state secret. According to the prosecution, Gershkovich did it in favor of the United States. Meduza, citing its source , reported that Gershkovich visited Nizhny Tagil during his business trip before being arrested. There is a defense enterprise "Uralvagonzavod", which produces tanks. also
On the page of "Uralvagonzavod" in "VKontakte" they write about the work "for the front and for victory." And in the public pages of Nizhny Tagil there is a video with the T-90M tank, which is "ready to meet Western cats."

What is known about the detainees?

Ruslan Bodrov, a resident of Nizhny Tagil (name and surname changed at his request) , told Kholod that the arrest took place at 23 Altaiskaya Street. He was able to recognize the entrance of this house from the video. The interlocutor lives in a neighboring yard.

Bodrov told Kholod that the man in the video was named Danil Mukhametov. On the page on VKontakte, Mukhametov really says that he works at Uralvagonzavod, as well as a photographer. Also on December 17, 2022, he published a snapshot of the certificate received for participation in the XVII All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference of Young Professionals - TagilCity.ru mentioned it. The last two photos on Mukhametov's page were posted in February 2023: they show that the pictures were taken in the Olympic Park in Sochi.

Yan Pakhomov (name changed at his request) , who studied with Danil Mukhametov at the Nizhny Tagil Engineering College, confirmed to Kholod that he recognized the detainee. “Danil graduated from technical school in 2011. It turns out that he should now be about 31 years old. After technical school, Danil, as far as I know, went to Moscow to work as a photographer, Pakhomov says. — About six years ago I met him at the factory, we exchanged a few phrases. It turned out that he returned to Nizhny Tagil and got a job as a technologist at the plant.

Judging by the page of Danil Mukhametov on VKontakte, his wife's name is Victoria, she is 23 years old. Among the communities she subscribes to is the Uralvagonzavod group. Pakhomov confirmed that Victoria Mukhametova also worked at the plant as a technologist. Kholod also identified Victoria and Danila Mukhametovs from photographs and videos of the young people's apartment from social networks, as well as from a video taken during the arrest.

The last post on Mukhametova’s page was made on February 27, 2022: this is a repost from the group of the poet Dmitry Kachmar. The post contains two photographs of Ukrainian houses destroyed after Russian shelling, and a quote from Brodsky:

It's better to get involved in other people's affairs,
When we can't figure out our own.

Yan Pakhomov says that Mukhametov did not express “anything particularly oppositional” in personal communication. However, they rarely crossed paths: several times at the plant (they worked in different departments), one more time at a reunion of graduates.

According to Pakhomov, the Mukhametov family hardly had access to secret documents and drawings, because a separate design bureau is engaged in secret work. In addition, at Uralvagonzavod, employees need to install special programs on their mobile phones that block the use of the camera. “Someone from the radical [employees] takes the phone in for repair, so that there they can directly remove the cameras [from the phone case],” says Pakhomov.

But Mukhametov, according to Pakhomov, was a "not very smart" guy. “While studying at a technical school, I got into stupid situations. Let me not list them for you,” Pakhomov said. “You can’t think of anything more stupid than this situation with the drawings.”