Konstantin Malofeev rose to fame in Russia’s corporate wars of the late 2000s. He became one of the most powerful people in telecommunications, but the devoutly Orthodox tycoon almost lost everything in a bitter dispute with state-owned bank VTB. In 2014, he was sanctioned by the West for providing support to rebels in eastern Ukraine. Since then, his business empire looks to have run into trouble: several of his companies face bankruptcy and others have big tax arrears.

How veterans of Russia’s ‘local wars’ privatized political violence at home and broke free from police control Marina Moldavskaya / Kommersant Supporters of the construction of St. Catherine’s Cathedral in October Square in Yekaterinburg, May 2019 There’s a market for non-state violence in Russia. The industry has different clients (including government authorities) who hire thugs to deal with civic activists, business competitors, and even state officials.

Anastasia Yeshchenko, a graduate student in history at St. Petersburg State University, was found dead on November 9. She was killed and dismembered by Oleg Sokolov, a 63-year-old instructor at her university. The two were in a relationship and living together. The St. Petersburg news outlet Fontanka interviewed another young woman who was studying philology as an undergraduate at the same institution when she met Sokolov in the mid-2000s.

Mikhail Klimentyev / Press Service of the President of the Russian Federation / TASS / VIDA PRESS The responsible editor of the Big Russian Encyclopedia Publishing House Sergey Kravets, former Russian President Yuri Osipov and Vladimir Putin at the Toms of the Encyclopedia in the Presidential Library.