Putin is a thief. Russia is ruled by the mafia, an alliance of the KGB and bandits “We did work for the CIA, but we were betrayed...”

The world-famous Ozero cooperative was created in November 1996. Putin and seven of his friends decided to build dachas next door, on the shores of Lake Komsomolskoye near St. Petersburg.

In 2016, this amazing (new) education turns 20 years old. And this is no longer a dacha cooperative, but an organized criminal group on a global scale. In the fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the dwarfs mined gold and precious stones, and Snow White sat at home, washed, cleaned, and cooked. In the “Lake” the dwarves stole, killed, cut through the budget, and Putin protected them from the authorities. And he portrayed Snow White on TV.

1. President of the Russian Federation Michal Ivanovich Putin.

Five of the seven friends with whom Putin settled in “Ozer” are businessmen who can be called the “PTI group” - all of them in 1990-91. did business at the Physico-Technical Institute named after. Ioffe. These are Yakunin, Kovalchuk, brothers Fursenko and Myachin. Of these, only one is a security officer (Yakunin), the rest are former physicists. Intelligentsia type.

Physicotechnical Institute was the flagship of Soviet science. In the early 90s, with the blessing of director Zhores Alferov, five businessmen from the future “Ozer” created a group of companies and joint ventures (joint ventures with foreigners) at the institute. They were mainly engaged in trade - computers, scientific instruments, etc. True, they just started at the Physicotechnical Institute, then they got promoted and began to work independently. But still with the same warm company.

The building of the Physicotechnical Institute on Polytechnicheskaya, 26.

Putin met these guys in 1991. They helped him pull off his two very first scams, which later played an important role in the biography of the future president of the Russian Federation. This is the “Raw materials in exchange for food” scam and the seizure of the Rossiya Bank (formerly owned by the CPSU). This gave Putin both his first big money and a place to store it. These same five friends formed the backbone of the new (already Putin’s) shareholders of Rossiya Bank.

So, five of Putin’s seven friends with whom he founded Ozero are the “FTI group”, also known as Rossiya Bank. The two remaining summer residents are Vladimir Smirnov and Nikolai Shamalov. By the way, also the intelligentsia. In Soviet times, Smirnov was a researcher at LIAP (Leningrad Institute of Aviation Instrumentation), a State Prize laureate, and Shamalov was a dentist. Then both went into commerce.

If this can be called commerce, of course... For one, the entire business was connected with the Tambov organized crime group, for the other - with kickbacks to Putin from the supply of German medical equipment for the city.

Smirnov in the 90s. was essentially a deputy. Head of the Tambov organized crime group for economics. The leader of this organized crime group, the largest in the city, was his friend and business partner Vladimir Kumarin (Kum). What did they do together? And the cocaine money was washed away (SPAG company), and real estate was squeezed out, and the gasoline market in the city was seized (Petersburg Fuel Company). And in the latter case - after a series of showdowns using all types of weapons. Everyone who stood in the way of Smirnov and Kum to the PTK went straight to the cemetery.

Smirnov and Kum in their best years.

As for Nikolai Shamalov, he modestly spent the entire 90s at the Siemens representative office in St. Petersburg. He sold equipment to city hospitals. Don’t forget to pay good kickbacks to the mayor’s office for choosing the right supplier. On this basis, I met Putin and was awarded a place in the Ozero cooperative.

And in the 2000s, Shamalov also began working for Putin as a cellist. All sorts of offshore companies with billions of dollars in turnover, shares in banks and enterprises were also registered on it. But at the same time, unlike Roldugin, he also carried out tasks around the house: he oversaw the construction of a palace near Gelendzhik, bought furniture there, and looked after elite vineyards. Shamalov actively involved his sons in his business. The elder Yuri became the head of Gazfond (the pension money of Gazprom employees, which was actually privatized by Putin and Rossiya Bank).

It’s not without reason that Ozero is compared to an organized crime group. There are Tambov ones, there are Solntsevo ones, and there are lake ones. Everything is similar here: the leader, the sixes, specialization - who controls what and where to collect money from. And there is a common fund (its own bank), and there are even nicknames for communicating with each other.

In the 2000s. Two defectors from the Kremlin’s inner circle fled to the West: Dmitry Skarga and Sergei Kolesnikov. Both provided Putin with housekeeping services. Skarga (former director of Sovcomflot) in 2002 transported the super-yacht Olympia from Europe to Sochi (Abramovich’s bribe to Putin). Kolesnikov (vice-president of the Petromed company) together with Shamalov helped build a palace near Gelendzhik.

Once in the West, Skarga and Kolesnikov spoke about the morals prevailing in the Kremlin. Both of them, in particular, gave interviews for the acclaimed BBC film “Putin’s Secret Riches,” which was released at the end of 2015.

As Skarga and Kolesnikov say, Putin among his circle has the nickname “Michal Ivanovich” (chief in the “Diamond Arm”) and is a real boss. The rest are all nothing more than sixes, even those on the Forbes lists. So, Timchenko (seemingly a billionaire) admitted to Skarga in private conversations that all his actions were “controlled by Michal Ivanovich.” Those. he is a purely nominal oligarch.

And Kolesnikov, who worked with Shamalov, once decided to challenge some order of Michal Ivanovich. I decided to put in my 2 cents. In response, Shamalov besieged him: “ He is a king, you are a slave! Your job as a slave is to fulfill!»

By the way, the slave Shamalov was included in the Forbes list in 2011. And the slave’s son Kirillka was married to the Tsar’s daughter in 2013, now this is a single Putin-Shamalov clan.

A beautiful couple, in kind. Putin has grandchildren, whatever he needs.

And here I am. Meet the king.

2.Common bank

In August 1991, a putsch by the State Emergency Committee took place in the USSR. After its failure, the former ruling party, the CPSU, was banned. Moreover, in St. Petersburg this party had its own bank - Rossiya Bank. Its main owner was the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU. When the CPSU was banned, the bank's activities were suspended.

In September 1991, Sobchak had his eye on him. He issued an order to reform the bank: find new founders for it (investors, preferably foreign ones) and create there the “Fund for Stabilization of the Economy of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.” This task was entrusted to Putin - Sobchak's deputy and head of the Committee on Foreign Economic Relations (KVS) at the mayor's office.

The briefcase was heavy and it took a lot to carry.

Sobchak’s order regarding Rossiya Bank was, in general, a Klondike. A bank with a license and the rest of the party money was lying on the road. Its former owners from the regional committee of the CPSU were in a hopeless situation. The question was who would go into the bank instead of them. Who will be the first to make it? And these turned out to be businessmen from the “PTI group”.

Under KVS, Putin had an Association of Joint Ventures. Yakunin and Kovalchuk actively hung out there. Putin contacted them, they mobilized their connections and bought the bank for themselves.

Of course, no “Economic Stabilization Fund” was created. But at the end of 1991, the five Yakunin, Kovalchuk, brothers Fursenko and Myachin became (through companies controlled by them) the new owners of Rossiya Bank. Since then, for 25 years, this bank has been a common wallet (theirs and Putin’s). Or rather, a common fund.

In the 2000s, Rossiya Bank accumulated huge assets. Sogaz, Sibur, Gazprombank, Gazprom-Media, everything that Michal Ivanovich stole from Gazprom, from the budget, everything was registered in the name of the bank and its structures.

Headquarters of AB "Russia" on the square. Rastrelli in St. Petersburg:

By the way, Roldugin’s offshore companies were managed from this building. All instructions to Panama regarding the $2 billion that he was saving for instruments for the orchestra (according to Putin) came from AB Rossiya.

Yuri Kovalchuk has been running the bank for many years, and he (nominally) has the largest stake. Kovalchuk is a former physicist, laureate of the USSR State Prize, professor, nickname - “Oblique”. Professor Yura Kosoy is now an oligarch and media tycoon (owner of Channel One, Channel Five, NTV, Ren-TV, etc.). In 2014, the bank and Kosoy personally came under sanctions. In a statement, the US Treasury called Kovalchuk Putin's "personal cashier".

Oblique. Guardian of the common fund and master of the TV.

On March 23, 2014, immediately after the introduction of sanctions, cashier Kovalchuk gave an interview to Dmitry Kiselev. He talked about his love for Putin; about the fact that he has $15 billion in assets in the bank; and for some other reason - about patriotism. Not a word about where the 15 billion in the bank came from and whose they actually are.

But that's nothing. Here is his neighbor on the “Lake” Yakunin in the 2000s. generally became an ideologist of patriotism. In August 2015, in his article “Globalization and Capitalism,” Yakunin wrote:

“We can say that the ruling elite of the United States made a big mistake by basing the doctrine of globalization on the messianic conviction that it was appointed by God to rule the world. As soon as the USSR, which periodically brought it to its senses, disappeared, this “hegemon” in world politics messed up so much that, in fact, the masses of people perceive the United States as a rogue state.”

In Soviet times, Yakunin was the head of the foreign department at the Physicotechnical Institute (there was such a GB position in Soviet universities). Then the Lord appointed him head of Russian Railways. Now he is nostalgic for the USSR, which “brought America to life.” I would continue the topic. If in the USSR the head of the railways (then it was called the Ministry of Railways) had built a villa with a fur storage facility, he too would have been brought to his senses. A bullet to the back of the head. At the same time there was a tower for theft in especially large cases.

The main thing is that we are not captured by America, understand, right?

But let's return to Rossiya Bank. From the “PTI group” there was also Viktor Myachin, also a former physicist and summer resident from Ozer. He was a top manager and shareholder of the bank for many years. But in 2009 he sold his share, bought various real estate in St. Petersburg and... retired.

Although Myachin is the youngest of the lake men (born in 1961), he has been living the life of a retired oligarch for many years, not knowing what to do with himself. Either he crosses Greenland on snowmobiles, or he hunts rare sheep in Kyrgyzstan. This is Abramovich in miniature. Having nothing else to do, he even started playing hockey in amateur tournaments.

Two more shareholders of Rossiya Bank from the 1991 membership are the Fursenko brothers - Andrey and Sergey. Also the lake lads. The brothers did not achieve much success in business, but they distinguished themselves in other areas. Andrei Fursenko, a former professor at the Physicotechnical Institute, has been hanging out in the government since 2000: either as a minister or as a deputy. Minister, now Putin’s assistant for science and education. It is Fursenko who is the author of the Skolkovo project and the whole idea with nanotechnology. Well, I don’t need to continue any further, I think.

The country's two main nanotechnologists. Andrey Fursenko - left.

As for Andrei Fursenko’s brother, Sergei, he is also a former physicist. At first he worked for Gazprom (the head of Lentransgaz), but then he got tired of it and went into football. FC Zenit ruled, then the RFU. After another failure of the national team, he was removed from there. Now in the Presidential Council on Physical Education and Sports.

Of course, I foresee a question. Well, it turns out that in the Ozero cooperative there are a bunch of former scientists, two professors, and award winners. And suddenly: there was Professor Kovalchuk, and he became Yura “Kosoy”, the holder of the common fund. How so?

If anyone is surprised by this, I suggest you look at this man with a poster:

Also a Doctor of Science (at 38 years old), laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize for scientific achievements. And then he went into commerce and that’s it - he became “Birch”. And this poster he has, addressed to Putin (“I gave birth to you...”), is not so far from the truth:

Ironically, the conflict between Putin and Berezovsky began in 2000, when Putin took away his controlling stake in ORT (Channel One). Now Channel One is owned by Kovalchuk. Birch was replaced by Oblique. This is the main meaning of Michal Ivanovich’s reign.

3. "Russian video". A side branch of Putin's mafia.

Speaking about the buyout of Rossiya Bank by the FTI group in 1991, one important detail should be kept in mind. The fact is that the communists (regional committee) were not the sole owners of the bank. They simply had the largest share (48%). The second large package (42%) belonged to the Russian Video film studio, and another 10% was held by small shareholders (Rus Insurance Company, Krasnoselskaya Fur Factory).

Of these former bank owners, only the regional committee of the CPSU was in a hopeless situation in 1991. They had no choice but to give their share to those whom the mayor’s office indicated (Sobchak and Putin). The rest did not have such problems.

Nevertheless, the “PTI group” took both the share of the regional committee and the share of the film studio. Small shareholders gave up their shares later. That is, Putin somehow reached an amicable agreement with the people from Russian Video. What kind of people were these? - Quite interesting characters. Putin collaborated with them not only in 1991 during the bank buyout, but also for many years afterwards. True, he prefers to remain silent about what kind of cooperation this was.

This is the magazine "Soviet Screen", N23 for 1988.

There is a small note in the magazine: “Russian video” is beginning.” It contains a story about a new company, just created under the state association “Videofilm”:

“Glorious news is coming from Leningrad. The traditional rock festival, which took place in June of this year, was completely filmed by the recently organized Russian Video studio (commissioned by the All-Union Production and Creative Association "Videofilm"), and this material is now being edited (...) The filming was commanded by Dmitry Rozhdestvensky - artistic director and chief director of Russian Video.

The founders of the Russian Video company were two childhood friends, former classmates - Dmitry Rozhdestvensky and Vladislav Reznik.

Rozhdestvensky - musician, director. Reznik is a former athlete, stuntman at Lenfilm. And besides, he is a mafioso, a close friend of Gennady Petrov himself (authority Gena Petrov). Petrov is one of the founders of the Tambov-Malyshevskaya organized crime group, which in 1989 was divided into Tambov and Malyshevskaya gangs. For the last 15 years, Reznik has been a State Duma deputy of all convocations (from United Russia, naturally). Since 2016, he has been wanted by Interpol in the case of the “Russian mafia” in Spain.

June 2008, Spain. Arrest of Gena Petrov by Spanish police.

Well, in 1990, Russian Video, together with the regional committee of the CPSU, established Rossiya Bank. Reznik in 1990-91 there was a deputy in this bank. chairman of the board. The result was a joint bank of the CPSU and the mafia. Since 1992, when Russian Video left the bank's shareholders, Reznik and Rozhdestvensky each went their own way. Reznik began to develop the insurance business, went to Moscow, and was a top manager at Rossgosstrakh in the 90s. After an unsuccessful attempt to privatize it, he went into politics.

Deputy Reznik in the Duma.

As for Rozhdestvensky or “Dim Dimych”, as he was called, he remained in Russian Video. But only “Russian Video” itself has changed a lot. On its basis, a dozen and a half private companies with the same name were created, which engaged in various types of activities (legal and illegal). Those. “Russian Video” has turned into a multi-industry concern.

The leadership has also changed. Now Rozhdestvensky managed everything together with a certain Vladimir Grunin, a retired KGB colonel, who oversaw the illegal part.

“Russian Video” is the dashing 90s in all its glory. What did they not do? There are movies (including video piracy) and casinos here. And his own TV channel - Channel 11 in St. Petersburg, now TNT. And smuggling - they leased a naval base in Lomonosov, where all cargo went without customs. And more drugs, and cashed it out with a cut of budget funds.

This is the famous St. Petersburg journalist and political scientist Dmitry Zapolsky, who in the 90s worked on the Russian Video TV channel (hosted his own program),

Dmitry knew the leadership of Russian Video well, as well as Putin, Sobchak, and many criminal leaders of the city. In an interview with the Russian Monitor in 2015, Zapolsky recalled:

“In the 1990s, Putin oversaw the port of Lomonosov, it was a military base where he had “his” admiral. And through this hole, hundreds, and maybe thousands of tons of cargo were imported and exported every day without any formalities. There were no customs, no border guards, no counterintelligence. Funny! Cocaine in St. Petersburg was like tooth powder. Actually everywhere. Even in Smolny, with particularly nimble guys (...)

The Lomonosov port itself formally belonged to the Russian Video company, which was controlled, on the one hand, by Kumarin, but was led by Mikhail Mirilashvili. The head of the company, Dmitry Rozhdestvensky, maintained warm relations with Putin, Chubais, and Narusova.”

The naval base in Lomonosov is on the outskirts of the Big Port of St. Petersburg. In the 90s - the main hole in Russia’s maritime border:

Putin’s “own admiral” in Lomonosov is Vladimir Grishanov, commander of the Leningrad naval base in 1993-95. It was he who leased the Lomonosov port to the bandits.

Admiral Grishanov. Commander of the naval forces of the Tambov organized crime group.

Kumarin and Mirilashvili, who controlled Russian Video and the port of Lomonosov, are Kum and Misha Kutaissky, respectively, the leaders of the two largest organized crime groups in the city. The backbone of the Kuma gang were athletes, Misha Kutaissky’s gang came from the village of Kulashi in western Georgia (a place of compact residence of Georgian Jews). Mirilashvili's father was a large workshop worker in Soviet times. Such an old mafia dynasty.

In the 90s, Mikhail Mirilashvili was the president (head of the Board of Directors) of Russian Video. Dim Dimych Rozhdestvensky (CEO) provided day-to-day management. Colonel Grunin looked after him. That's how they worked.

October 2015 Delegation of the Russian Jewish Congress in Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu hugs Misha Kutaissky (far left).

Roof "Russian Video" it was not only bandits. Running contraband (including cocaine) through a Navy base is not an easy task. Therefore, Putin supervised the bandits. He did this through his friend and trusted person in the criminal world - Roma Tsepova (authority Roma-Producer).

Roma Tsepov.

Roma Tsepov, a former Internal Troops officer, was the leader of his own “cop gang” (as brigades of former police officers, security officers, Internal Troops, etc. were then called). Roma knew both the main bandits in Russian Video (both Kum and Misha) well, and it was more convenient for Putin to work through him.

In fact, Russian Video had a so-called “striped roof”: bandits and cops/security officers in one bottle:

It remains to add that Roma Tsepov formed his gang in the early 90s together with the security officer Zolotov (Sobchak’s bodyguard, in the 2000s the head of Putin’s security). Now, as you know, Zolotov has a new important job - the National Guard of the Russian Federation. Such a striped cop gang of 400 thousand people.

In general, St. Petersburg is the birthplace of striped roofs. This is where they first appeared. Putin and Zolotov are the living embodiment of this phenomenon.

The photo below was taken in New York in August 2000. All the security officers are here (from left to right): Zolotov (Putin’s security chief), Murov (FSO director), Kutafin and Tretyakov (residents of the SVR in the USA).

Tretyakov was already working for the CIA. Soon he will become a defector. Based on conversations with him, journalist Peter Erli will write a book (“Comrade Z”). In it you can read the following interesting passage:

“When, in 2000, Zolotov (the leader’s security guard) and a company arrived in New York to ensure the security of the president’s visit, they were accompanied by the head of the SVR in this city, Tretyakov - and, one evening, the company went to a restaurant on Brighton Beach . There Zolotov, according to Tretyakov, began to boast of his hand-to-hand fighting skills - and, for no reason, for no reason, suddenly, with a flourish, he hit Tretyakov in the forehead with his fist. Tretyakov flew from his chair to the floor and lost consciousness for several seconds. Murov (the head of the FSO) burst into abuse at Zolotov: “You could have killed him!” Zolotov apologized. After the visit, Tretyakov remembered the words of Deputy Murov about his boss and Zolotov - “ Yes, they are all ordinary bandits...»

Firm "Zolotov, Kadyrov and Sons". Bandits in the service of the bandit regime.

Returning to Russian Video, it is worth noting that the audience there was more colorful than just single-celled criminals like Zolotov. Both heads of the company (Rozhdestvensky and Grunin) were seriously interested in medieval mysticism. They established their own knightly order (“Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem”), declaring it a division of the Order of Malta in the Russian Federation. After which they accepted each other into the “Knights of Malta”: Rozhdestvensky became the “Grand Prior” of the order, and Grunin became his deputy.

The mansion of “Russian Video” on Kamenny Island was hung with symbols of all kinds of secret brotherhoods, from the Maltese to the Freemasons, under which the gentlemen knights sat and resolved issues of cash and cocaine.

Dmitry Rozhdestvensky (far left, with a glass) in the company of influential politicians of the time.

Grand Prior Dim Dimych, according to Zapolsky’s recollections, loved to drink and was constantly under the driver’s seat at work. Zapolsky describes his deputy, the Knight of Malta Grunin, as “a modest little man with a triangular belly” who was engaged in “planning active operations” in the KGB. The active operations of the KGB are all sorts of dark things that Soviet intelligence did on the territory of foreign countries: murders, support for terrorists, spreading disinformation.

According to Zapolsky, Colonel Grunin, having left the KGB, did not leave his profession. Those. worked part-time as a contract killer. For many years, Russian Video had a series of strange deaths of employees associated with one or another illegal operation. Zapolsky counted 14 such corpses in Russian Video.

Then suddenly a completely healthy person had an asthma attack, another had a heart attack, and a third fainted while driving. When the tax police came to Russian Video with an audit in 1998, the chief accountant suddenly died. Suddenly he fell ill with no clear reason, and even the doctors at the Military Medical Academy could not determine what was wrong. In fact, the founder and director of Russian Video, Dim Dimych, did not live long - he died at the age of 48 from a heart attack in 2002.

Rozhdestvensky's grave in St. Petersburg. A monument in the form of a piano (as a musician), a Catholic cross (as a Knight of Malta), an Orthodox priest with a censer. Everything is as it should be.

In general, contract killings in gangster St. Petersburg using SVR and GRU specialists are a separate issue. Every serious organized crime group has its own team of killers. There was one in “The Lake”. It emerged in the second half of the 90s from former military saboteurs. They worked with Roma Tsepov, took orders from Putin, Timchenko, Smirnov.

This Putin team of killers from St. Petersburg was the first to come up with the idea of ​​exploding hexogen in residential buildings. In October 1998, Dmitry Filippov, one of the richest businessmen in the city, who had a conflict with Putin and Smirnov, was killed in this way. Hexogen was placed in the ceiling lamp of the entrance to his house and detonated by radio signal when he entered there. Filippov was expecting an assassination attempt and walked around with serious security, but professionals worked.

The murder was attributed to the gang of Shutov (Titych), with whom Putin and Sobchak also had long-standing scores. In short, we killed two birds with one stone. This, by the way, is “planning active operations.” Not just kill, but turn the arrows. True, Shutov and his criminals had neither motive, nor technical skills, nor RDX to commit such a crime. But these are all minor things.

A year after that, before the elections, hexogen began to explode in Moscow.

After 2000, the organized crime group grew. Now Putin has no shortage of killers. There is a private army of Kadyrov-Zolotov (battalions “North”, “South”). But this is so, Basmachi. Putin also has his own private army - this is one secret PMC (private military company) under the SVR. It is based in St. Petersburg. In 2015-16 these mercenaries became famous in the rear of the DPR-LPR, where they killed unwanted field commanders and Cossacks.

This Putin PMC is also called the “Wagner group” or simply the Wagners. Wagner is the pseudonym of their commander, special forces lieutenant colonel Dmitry Utkin. It so happened that, in his views, Utkin is a Nazi and a fan of the Third Reich, hence “Wagner” (a composer who glorified “Aryan” pagan mysticism). The Wagners and Kadyrovites are private armies from the times of developed Putinism. These are no longer the killer teams from the 90s. This is a new step.

In general, in a developed mafia state, private armies are normal. Let's say that in Colombia the mafia also has its own armies. The Cali cartel had a private army called Los Pepes in the 90s. She fought with the PMCs of the Medellin cartel. For what? - For the right to supply cocaine to the port of Lomonosov, among other things. Why is Putin’s organized crime group worse than Medellin? - Yes, she’s cooler!

4. Raw materials in exchange for theft

On April 25, 2005, in the Marble Hall of the Kremlin, Michal Ivanovich gave a speech to the Federal Assembly:

In it, he said, in particular:

“The collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. For the Russian people it became a real drama...”

Well, then there is how the Russian people suffered during the collapse of the USSR, how they became impoverished, how “oligarchic groups”, acting for their own selfish purposes, robbed them, etc. The speech was interrupted by applause 26 times. Deputy Reznik from the Malyshevskaya organized crime group gave a standing ovation (just kidding).

Everything is fine, but there is a legitimate question: what did Mikhail Ivanovich himself do at the turn of 1991-92, when the USSR collapsed? He probably didn’t sleep at night, worried. Such a disaster all around! I propose to take a closer look at the affairs of the vice-mayor of St. Petersburg Putin in the winter of 1991-92.

The USSR ended on December 25, 1991. Around seven in the evening, Gorbachev announced his resignation and half an hour later two tipsy workers from the Kremlin servants climbed onto the roof of the Grand Kremlin Palace and removed the red flag. There were no honors or ceremonies. Truly an inglorious end.

The end of the USSR did not evoke any emotions in anyone. The people were overwhelmed by queues, poverty, chaos.

Well, something like that, yes. And only Michal Ivanovich did not sleep that night. Sobbed. A catastrophe, terrible, geopolitical, was approaching and forcing him to act before it was too late. On December 4, 1991, he wrote a letter to Moscow, to the government, with business proposals.

From Putin’s letter to Moscow it is clear that he is eager to save his hometown from hunger. There are piles of raw materials in warehouses in the Leningrad region, he writes. Petroleum products, metals, timber. Don't let the goodness go to waste. Let's push it all abroad. And I will spend the money on buying food for the city. I promise! But most importantly, give me the right to issue export licenses myself.

As soon as Moscow gave the go-ahead, Putin immediately began vigorous activity. He put together a group of specially selected people (friends, KGB colleagues, university classmates) and began issuing them licenses to export raw materials. Some carried petroleum products, others - aluminum, others - rare metals, timber, etc.

True, the companies to which he gave licenses were somehow strange. Or leftists in general, who then simply could not find money (and money too). Or they seemed normal, but with such prices in the contracts that the raw materials were sold almost for nothing. For example, rare metals were exported by an office called “Jikop”. Below is an expert assessment of the prices for metals in the contract with her, which was made later by the deputy commission of the Petrograd Soviet (the so-called Salye commission):

Niobium - the price is reduced by 7 times, cerium - by 10, scandium - by 2000 times. Why did Putin and his captain sign contracts on such strange conditions? - To steal money. Together with especially close businessmen, of course.

By the way, Jikop is the company of Putin’s classmate at Leningrad State University, Ilham Ragimov, from Azerbaijan. Now, as usual, he is a billionaire, co-owner of the largest Moscow markets and hotels. And it all started with scandium.

What’s interesting is that licenses for Jikop and all the others were issued by Putin’s KVS for a rather narrow period of time: from 12/20/1991 to 01/13/1992. We can say that Putin did not rest during those New Year holidays. Was in a hurry to make money on " biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century».

Below is the very first license of Putin’s KVS dated December 20, 1991. It was given to the Nevsky Dom company for the export of 150,000 tons of petroleum products to England for a total of $32 million:

As can be seen from the license, the producer of petroleum products was the refinery in Kirishi (Leningrad region). At that time, Gennady Timchenko was in charge of exports there. An experienced person in foreign trade, a security officer, a friend of Michal Ivanovich. But come on: 150 thousand petroleum products were sent to England not by the plant itself, but by an unknown intermediary company. Documents from her were signed by certain Wittenberg and Rusakov.

In 2008, when Timchenko was already a dollar billionaire, the Financial Times wrote about these supplies through Nevsky House. Timchenko was indignant and issued a refutation:

“The article says that I owned a company that “received a large export quota in Putin’s scandalous oil-for-food scheme.” I repeat - not me. The company that received the quota was again the state-owned Kirishineftekhimexport, of which I was an employee. I was not involved in this scheme. I don't remember any scandal. As far as I remember, the company delivered food as promised.”

Something happened to security officer Timchenko’s memory. At the beginning of 1992, Marina Salye’s commission found out that Kirishi diesel fuel and gasoline went abroad, but not through Kirishineftekhimexport (the official exporter at the plant), but through the left-wing company Nevsky Dom. No one else saw her, her leaders in Wittenberg and Rusakov, or the money. To whom Vova Putin gave the right to export petroleum products was not clear. Without the help of the investigative authorities, in any case.

Chekist Gena Timchenko, nicknamed “Gangrene”. In Putin's team since 1991.

We must pay tribute to the abilities of Michal Ivanovich. The scam was a success. Putin and his associates stole about $100 million. Yes, but... after all, we were talking about a half-starved city, where people stood in lines for bread.

And the funny thing is, then this same Chekist-marauder also began to tell her on TV about the “largest geopolitical catastrophe.” On which he made the biggest loot. It's a bad situation, yes. This morality is called fascism.

By the way, the guys from the future “Ozer” also took part in that scam “Raw materials in exchange for food”. In July 2001, Italian journalists published a large investigation in the newspaper La Repubblica about Putin's affairs in the 90s. Including the scam with raw materials. So the company “Nevsky Dom”, which exported oil products and disappeared, according to the Italians, was controlled by Vladimir Smirnov from “Ozer”.

The Russian three-year electoral cycle began with a high-profile event.

One of Putin’s closest accomplices since the KGB days and co-founder of the Ozero dacha cooperative recently lost his sinecure - the post of head of the state railway monopoly. This has fueled speculation that Putin feels the need to shake up his inner circle. The next day, Putin staged a photo shoot in his signature style - at the helm of a mini bathyscaphe, plunging into the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea. The Kremlin's propaganda machine continues to race at full speed, celebrating the burning of banned (and supposedly poisonous) products smuggled in from the West.

Putin is resorting to theatrical effects, which clearly indicates preparations for the extension of powers in the 2018 presidential “elections”. The annexation of Crimea and the surge in Russian patriotism have raised Putin's popularity to levels undreamed of by Western leaders. Movement from here is only possible downwards. Putin has no serious political opponents within the country, but his path to re-election could be rocky.

The main question on his agenda: how to manage the Russian “elites”? The Kremlin has sent a clear signal that it needs their help to cope with the consequences of the current economic crisis, even if the threat of popular discontent with the regime or significant street protests does not seem critical. This helps explain the endless stream of anti-Western rhetoric and initiatives that resonate with the sentiments of a patriotic electorate.

Massive street protests in Moscow in 2011–12 demonstrated the link between economic growth and the demand for greater political representation expressed by the main beneficiaries of Russia's then-prosperous prosperity. Now, with the economy crippled by collapsing oil prices and Western sanctions, the mood inside Russia is radically different.

The “creative class” in big cities such as the capital is oppressed and increasingly withdrawn from political life. Some have given up and are simply leaving the country. The combination of economic crisis, powerful propaganda, patriotic mobilization and hybrid warfare in Ukraine has created conformity, passivity and indifference.

Ordinary Russians who make up Putin's political base seem to see themselves as living in a medieval besieged fortress. Why should they protest against Putin, who, according to the official version of what is happening, is protecting them from the sinister plans of the West, seeking to destroy Russia? They don’t care that Putin is also responsible for the distribution of social benefits. It is much better to wait for the mercy of the authorities who distribute money and rations, vigilantly looking out for foreign agents and the “fifth column” around you.

The average Russian has generally become accustomed to the hardships caused by Western sanctions. But the situation is much more difficult for Russian businessmen, who were suddenly cut off from the international financial system. For now, Russian companies can still turn to the Kremlin for handouts and subsidies from the treasury. Unfortunately for most of them, the size of their handouts depends largely on their connections to Putin's circle—and the price of oil.

The political reality is different. Soaring inflation and painful budget cuts belie what Russians see on TV. However, for some time, sensational television programming can replace high-quality and relatively inexpensive food.

The Kremlin political team is confident that, at least for now, this new social contract—let’s call it “Crimea and patriotism in exchange for freedom”—is working. She is confident that it will continue to bear fruit until the end of Putin’s presidential term, which expires in 2018.

So why do Putin and the ruling clique look so worried and insecure? Perhaps they feel trapped. In the period 2000-2010, the ruling “elites” became complacent thanks to high prices for black gold, stable economic growth and an easy-to-manipulate internal political system. And although at first the “elites” applauded Moscow’s aggression towards Ukraine, they know that this war is costing Russia dearly and that all the remaining options at the Kremlin’s disposal to resolve this crisis are unacceptable to Putin and the “war party” around him.

So today, when it comes to strategic thinking, the “elite” is essentially in a quandary. What exactly would be the platform for Putin’s re-election in 2018? Will he take on the toga of a patriot, turning to xenophobia in the format of the Russian Orthodox Church and to the mythology of the Stalin era? This may not work.

Expanding Russian possessions in the Arctic, which the Kremlin apparently wants, judging by its recent appeal to the UN, would be a lackluster imitation of the triumph in Crimea.

What else? Economic recovery looks unlikely in the absence of high energy and commodity prices, as well as new sources of growth or the return of external factors that have boosted the prosperity of Russia's middle class for most of Putin's rule. Investments are falling, and this is the first crisis in Russia's post-Soviet history when consumption is declining even faster than investment.

So even as his approval ratings remain astronomically high, Putin appears increasingly vulnerable. Sanctions and the end of his romantic relationship with the West have left Putin isolated on the international stage.

The Kremlin's successes in building the besieged fortress resulted in the imprisonment of the chief architect in it. Writes Reuters

During the 15 years of its reign, the pale St. Petersburg moth did the following things:

1) Completely destroyed Russian industry and destroyed the economy. Now Raska produces nothing but oil and gas, and is just a poor regional gas station, and if there are any remaining individual production facilities, they are owned by foreigners and operate entirely on imported equipment. And during the crisis, they will soon completely bend...

2) Completely destroyed Russian science. Now we not only do not develop anything, but we do not even purchase technology abroad, since all the money is stolen by the main Kremlin thief in law and the Ozero cooperative. Russian scientists and qualified specialists either leave for civilized normal countries or eke out a miserable existence on pittance salaries (which are not even enough for food and medicine).

3) Purposefully destroyed Russian education (which at one time was one of the best in the world). The level of the educated part of the population is decreasing every year (and has already dropped to the level of Iran and Latin America), and schools and institutes produce either ignoramuses and amateurs, or “buy and sell” traders.

4) Destroyed Russian medicine. It is becoming more and more difficult to get normal and free medical care, free medicine is disappearing before our eyes, the number of normal doctors is rapidly declining, and in their place are young professional workers and ignoramuses with purchased diplomas who can’t do anything other than line their own pockets. Hospitals and clinics are either closing or falling apart and not being repaired. The level of Russian medicine is falling, and will soon drop to the African level.

5) It completely destroyed Russian agriculture, as a result of which only weeds and tartar grass now grow on the site of most Russian fields (on which something was previously grown), on the site of agricultural enterprises there are terrible, heartbreaking ruins, and most Russian collective farms, towns and villages are either extinct and depopulated, or inhabited by a few drunken old people who live out their lives in terrible poverty. All you have to do is drive out into the countryside and you can see landscapes scarier than those in the game "Fallout 4" and the movie "Wrong Turn." In addition, the country is now practically unable to feed itself. All products on the shelves (from meat to bread are imported, and domestic products are only synthetic milk and cheese made from paraffin and palm oil). To top it all off, the Botex Rat and his people ordered the destruction of high-quality foreign products, as a result of which famine has already begun in some Russian regions (for example, in the Tver region) with deaths from malnutrition. And this is just the beginning.

6) Completely destroyed the Russian social sphere. Most of the population receives miserable wages and pensions, on which it is impossible to live, but only to survive. While bureaucrats of even not very high rank (for example, Peskov) steal billions with impunity, engage in crime and buy real estate and things that are many times greater than their official annual income (for example, watches that are bought abroad only by Arab sheikhs and a few very rich collectors ). The population dies out in the millions every year, people flee the country, and in their place migrants are brought in from the Caucasus and Central Asia, which will lead to catastrophic consequences in the near future.

7) She destroyed the Russian army, which now consists only of cowardly goners, drunken and thieving officers, fat sick generals, and piles of outdated rotting scrap metal from the 60s. And if a war breaks out, even with a not very serious enemy, the Russian army will be defeated in a matter of days. And to top it all off, the main culprits for the collapse of the army (Serdyukov and his woman) did not suffer any punishment...

8) To top it all off, Khuilo legalized and strengthened the lawlessness that began under EBN, creating a criminal vertical of thieves, the main function of which is the unlimited and limitless theft of the country, the total robbery of the population and the export of trillions of dollars to foreign banks and offshores. In addition, it was Botex who was involved in the sinking of the Kursk submarine, as well as in many terrorist attacks (for example, house explosions in 1999 and Beslan 2004), which were carried out by his subordinates in order to increase the boss’s election ratings.

And this is not a complete list of the crimes of Huil and his gang. They can go on for a very, very long time. However, normal and sane people see everything anyway (despite the continuous persecution of the First Anal and Kisel-TV, which only the stupidest cotton wool and redneck can believe). And to any person without rose-colored glasses, it is absolutely obvious that Rashka in its current form will not last until 2020. And the outcome will be much more terrible and shameful than in 1991. There will be a collapse of the economy, the collapse of the country, famine, freezing of entire cities, civil war and external occupation... And this is very sad, but inevitable.

How the alliance between fascists and recidivists is structured.

1. Alliance of fascists with repeat offenders.

Roma was killed, but the people, the cadres that he put forward, are still alive. One of them, whom Roma left as a souvenir for us, is Putin’s chef Prigozhin. He would not have been able to become so close to Putin and Zolotov if Tsepov had not helped. As they say, a man died, but his work lives on.

4. Powers of special machinations.

In general, as you understand, Putin’s chef is a man with a rich biography. And in 2000-2001. she made another zigzag: Prigogine left under the roof of Misha Kutaissky and moved to Tsepov-Zolotov. And soon he completely fell into Putin’s inner circle.

After this, our hero’s affairs went uphill sharply. From a mediocre restaurateur, he turned into a supplier of ready-made meals for schools and military units worth huge sums. But at some point even this seemed not enough. And somewhere in 2012, Prigozhin began to be attracted to non-core (non-kitchen) business.

At first it was a project to clog the Internet with Zaputin propaganda. With Prigozhin’s money (i.e. from the budget), the famous troll factory in Olgino appeared in St. Petersburg, which then moved to Savushkina, 55, then to the Lakhta-2 business center, etc.

St. Petersburg, business center "Lakhta-2" on Optikov street, 4. Most of Zaputin’s comments on social networks are written here.

In addition to this factory for writing comments, in 2014, the “Federal News Agency” (FAN) also appeared - a group of sites that distribute Zaputin and GB nonsense on the Internet under the guise of news. From the series: “The USA is in panic from our new fighter. The Russophobes of the State Department strangled themselves with shoelaces.” They, however, overdid it, and in 2017 Google kicked out all FAN sites from Google News, along with the archive for all the years. But Yandex News continues to produce this Prigozhinsky garbage in batches.

And finally, since 2014, Prigozhin began to participate not only in informational, but also in real wars of the Putin regime - in the east of Ukraine, the Wagner PMC received a baptism of fire. And in the fall of 2015, she was transferred to Syria.

Moscow, 2016. Commanders of the Wagner PMC in the Kremlin. Judging by the Russian press, in Lugansk Utkin liked to go out in public wearing a Wehrmacht helmet. In the image that is. It's strange that he didn't wear it to the Kremlin. After all, a meeting with the Fuhrer.

The one to the left of Putin is Andrei Troshev (“Sedoy”), Utkin’s deputy at the PMC. Former paratrooper, then served in SOBR. According to Russian media reports, in June 2017 he was found on the street in St. Petersburg in a state of “heavy alcoholic intoxication” and taken to the hospital. He had with him 5 million rubles, some maps of Syria, papers on the Wagner PMC. Almost drank a military secret, in short.

Another participant in the reception in the Kremlin is Ratibor, aka Alexander Kuznetsov. This is a major from the Senezh center in Solnechnogorsk (“sunflowers”, special operations forces of the Moscow Region). In 2008, Major Ratibor went to prison for robbery and kidnapping. In 2013, he miraculously left prison and became a mercenary.

It is noteworthy that in the same place in Solnechnogorsk, where “sunflowers” ​​grow, the private security company “Stealth”, about which Litvinenko once wrote, is now based. The private security company was created in the 1990s. jointly by the FSB and the Izmailovo organized crime group to commit contract killings - for hire and on the orders of the Motherland. Special forces soldiers were involved in the private security company. The office was a living symbol of the merger of the FSB and the mafia - it was no longer possible to determine where one ended and the other began.

The Stealth private security company was founded by FSB Colonel Lutsenko (he still works there), and his supervisor in the 1990s was General Khokholkov (“Yeltsin’s Sudoplatov”). The general also protected the heroin trade, and the private security company was his help in the showdown. In short, special operations forces (brothers with security officers).

Returning to the Wagner PMC, it is worth noting that it also arose on the basis of an undercover office of the special services: the backbone of the Wagner PMC was formed back in 2013 as part of the security company Moran Security Group, which is headed by Putin’s KGB colleague Vyacheslav Kalashnikov.

Moran is a company that, since 2010, has been recruiting mercenaries to protect ships abroad (including those transporting contraband). It was to Kalashnikov at “Moran” that Utkin first went, having left the army in 2013. Major Kuznetsov (Ratibor) also began his career as a mercenary there, after leaving prison, and many others.

FSB Lieutenant Colonel Vyacheslav Kalashnikov from St. Petersburg. The person who selected key personnel for Wagner PMC:

In 2013, the first (unsuccessful) attempt was made to send mercenaries to Syria for land operations through the Kalashnikov company. They assembled a small unit (267 people), with the loud name “Slavic Corps,” and sent them to fight for Assad. However, the mercenaries could not fight without air and artillery support; they fled in the first battle and were sent back to Russia.

In this detachment there was Utkin and the future command staff of Wagner PMC. The first pancake came out badly, but in 2014 they were remembered again, creating a new, larger gang, which went to war on a large scale - in Ukraine, again in Syria, etc. And they hired a lackey cook to pay for it all (from the budget in the end, so it’s not a pity).

As for the security officer Kalashnikov, who gave Wagner and the company a start in life, there are many questions. Officially, he served in the State Security Service from 1981 to 1994 in the Leningrad (St. Petersburg) department. Counterintelligence agent with knowledge of German. In 1994 he quit and worked in private security structures. Since 2009 - President of Moran Security Group.

He retired in 1994 with the rank of lieutenant colonel. However, in 2013, there were interviews in the Russian media with mercenaries whom he recruited for work. In personal communications, Kalashnikov introduced himself as an FSB general. It turns out that he never left the organs.

In addition, Mr. Kalashnikov is a man with extensive mafia connections. Some of them are quite unexpected.

5.Putin's emissary

There is an interesting detail in the biography of security officer Kalashnikov: in 2001-2003 he was an assistant to Senator Alexander Torshin in the Federation Council. Torshin is one of the highest officials of the Russian Federation, in 2002-15 - vice-speaker of the Federation Council, and now - deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia.

One of the people who knew him well, banker and oppositionist Sergei Aleksashenko, claimed to Bloomberg in 2016 that Torshin has “long ties with the FSB” and is their creature. Those. This is another product of the vital activity of the office at the address: Moscow, st. Bol. Lubyanka, 1. Although in the case of Torshin, subcontractors also had a hand. An organization sitting in the forest at the 38th kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road (for which they are called foresters, as well as welders - from S.V.R.):

Throughout the 1990s, Torshin hung around Gorbachev, then Yeltsin in various positions. Under Putin, he was promoted, but became the hero of two international scandals. One is purely mafia (in Spain), the other is spy (in America).

In 2013-14 In Spain, 10 members of the Taganskaya organized crime group were arrested on charges of money laundering. Among others, the leader of the Taganskaya lads, Alexander Romanov (“Roman”), was arrested. Before this, for several years the phones of all the defendants in the case were wiretapped by the Spaniards.

The Spanish police were quite surprised that Roman, it turns out, is not the main one in the Tagansk organized crime group. There is a cooler person who gives him instructions on where and what millions of dollars to send. Roman respects this man and calls him nothing less than “godfather.” Well, as you guessed, the godfather of the Tagansk organized crime group turned out to be Mr. Torshin.

In particular, there is an episode in the case where Torshin gives instructions to Roman on how to invest and launder his (Torshin’s) personal $15 million. At that time, Torshin was deputy chairman of the Federation Council, a member of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee and much more. One of the top officials of the state. In 2015, Putin appointed him deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia.

Bloomberg (August 2015): “Mafia or Central Bank Banker? The Spanish police say that this Russian is both.”

As for Torshin's spy affairs, the situation is even more ridiculous. The fact is that Torshin for a long time had a very unusual hobby for a Kremlin official - he was a member of the US National Rifle Association (NSA).

This is a conservative organization that advocates for traditional American values, which include the right of citizens to bear arms. Moreover, their ideology is such that this is necessary not only for self-defense, but also to prevent tyranny in the country: if some local Putin suddenly turns up there, wanting to steal from power for 20-30 years, so that he does not go out into the street empty-handed.

It’s paradoxical, but in this organization, which has nothing to do with the “traditional values” of Putin’s Russia, the Vice-Speaker of the Federation Council, Mr. Torshin, hung out for many years. For what? - This became clear only in 2016, when Trump was elected in the United States, and the rifle association supported him in every possible way.

At the height of the election campaign, Torshin, through one of his acquaintances in the NRA, Paul Erickson, contacted the Trump campaign with a proposal to establish a direct communication channel with Putin. Erickson conveyed the proposal to Rick Dearbon (Trump assistant), where he described Torshin as “Putin’s emissary.”

Referring to Torshin, he said that Putin would like to meet with Trump before the election, and that Putin is “deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump.”

Torshin’s mission, however, failed: the Trump campaign showed no interest in the proposal. But all the correspondence between the parties was successfully intercepted by the FBI, and its participants had problems: they had to explain that they were not the initiators of the negotiations, and it was Putin’s emissary who was trying to communicate.

Nevertheless, the fact is quite indicative: such a character, “Putin’s emissary” abroad (and the Tagansk organized crime group at the same time), once worked for the security officer Kalashnikov, the future founder of the Moran Security Group and the godfather of the Wagner PMC.

Of course, I foresee the question: okay, Wagner PMC is a product of the special services and Putin. What about Blackwater in America? - A PMC under the CIA and the Pentagon, which was involved in all sorts of shady matters? And which had an equally odious and notorious founder - former Navy SEAL Erik Prince. Wagner PMC - Russian Blackwater. Isn't that right?

Well, let's take a quick look at the history of Blackwater, since they are so often compared to Wagner. And you will understand the difference.

6. "Blackwater".

In 1992, a young guy from Michigan, Erik Prince, decided to join the army. He passed the test and ended up in the Navy special forces, which they call SEALs. Translated from English, “seals” are Navy SEALs, although the abbreviation SEAL itself stands for differently: SEa, Air, and Land teams (sea, air and ground teams).

Service in SEAL teams is difficult, all over the world, the best of the best are then selected for SAD - the Special Operations Department of the CIA. SAD is already US foreign intelligence special forces. Similar to the “Vympel” type in the former Soviet KGB.

This is the difficult path that the boy from Michigan, Erik Prince, chose for himself:

What's interesting is that this kid from Michigan is the son of a billionaire. His father, Edgar Prince, is a talented engineer; in 1965 he founded a company producing automobile parts. He started with one workshop, for 30 years he produced metal castings and sun visors for car interiors and was very successful in this. In the end, he had a network of factories, orders from the largest automakers in America. Well, my son joined the SEALs.

By the way...Show me the son of at least one billionaire in Russia who has at least served emergency duty? What about the billionaire engineer who founded his own factories without privatizing anything? What about in mechanical engineering? “Stupid Americans” are rotting and will soon fall apart, yeah.

Edgar Prince died in 1995. The family (wife and 4 children) sold his company for $1.35 billion and divided the inheritance. Son Erik Prince left the army after serving in the SEALs for three years and decided to start his own business. But also connected with the army and special forces. Thus, in 1997, the private military company Blackwater was born.

With his own money, Prince bought 1,600 hectares of land in an empty swampy area in North Carolina (300 km from Washington), where he equipped the largest private shooting range and military training ground in the United States. CIA veterans with combat experience came to work for the company. This is how the private army “Blackwater” began to form.

Its finest hour came in 2001, after the September 11 terrorist attacks. When the smoke cleared from the collapsed twin towers, it was quickly established that almost 3,000 people were killed by suicide bombers from the al-Qaeda organization. Their headquarters were then in Afghanistan, under the wing of the Taliban regime - Islamic fanatics who seized power in this country in 1996.

Under the blows of the US Air Force, the Taliban regime quickly collapsed, and a long-term hunt for al-Qaeda began in the mountains. And in 2003, the war in Iraq was added to the war in Afghanistan. Two wars immediately created a huge demand for private security services. Blackwater has received contracts worth more than $2 billion from the American government to protect various facilities and citizens. In a short period of time, Erik Prince earned more in the war than his dad earned in his entire life from spare parts.

Blackwater in Iraq:

Moreover, an important detail: under contracts with the US Department of Defense, mercenaries were hired for auxiliary and logistical tasks, NOT on the front line (this is prohibited). If it becomes known in America that the Pentagon uses mercenaries at the front as assault infantry... And even puts them in hundreds and hides losses. Moreover, the president’s cook pays for everything. And the cook himself is a mafioso and his PMC is illegal... In short, even before the situation reaches such a cesspool, there will be a scandal and the whole gang will be dispersed. And this is normal (in normal countries).

And yet, friends, although Prince’s PMC operated officially and did not go into attack from the trenches, a scandal still arose with it in America. And a considerable one: Prince had to sell the company and leave the USA.

7. “We did work for the CIA, but we were betrayed...”

In 2007, clouds gathered over Erik Prince's PMC. His men shot 14 people in a square in Baghdad in broad daylight, and wounded 17 more. The opening of fire was considered unmotivated. Four mercenaries were brought to trial in the United States. The one third from the left in the photo (Nicholas Slatten) received a life sentence, the others - 30 years.

The incident caused a great resonance (including a diplomatic one). Numerous journalistic investigations began into the activities of the Blackwater PMC and Prince personally. A lot of dirty laundry has come out. One of the curious facts that the American media discovered then was that Prince had secret contracts with the CIA for the physical elimination of al-Qaeda members outside the United States. Those. Blackwater PMC was engaged in more than just security. They could have killed someone to order.

The orders were given by the government. After the September 11 attacks, President Bush directed the CIA to find and eliminate al-Qaeda members wherever they were found. Cofer Black, head of the CIA's anti-terrorism center, was put in charge of this case. He once became famous for catching Carlos “The Jackal,” the main international terrorist of the 1970s and 80s. Now there was another task - not to catch, but to bring down.

Cofer Black, chief wet case officer at the CIA in the first half of the 2000s.

Extrajudicial killings on foreign soil are risky business. If the operation is carried out incompetently or recklessly, the costs can be high (see Polonium-210). Therefore, Cofer Black decided to secretly hire a “subcontractor” - PMC Blackwater.

And in 2005, Cofer Black left the service altogether and went to work... there at Blackwater. At some point, it became difficult to determine where the CIA ended and the PMC began. They formed a symbiosis.

How did this symbiosis work? In 2009, journalists from the weekly Atlantic managed to find two former Blackwater mercenaries who agreed to tell what Erik Prince’s PMC was doing in Afghanistan, but without publishing their names in the press. These were two former special forces soldiers, Mexican Americans with dark skin. They were chosen specifically - if they change their clothes, they can outwardly pass for Afghans.

As the Atlantic journalist writes, the guys from the American special forces were calm about the job of carrying out murders, but asked their employer (Blackwater) how legal it was. They assured me that everything was OK.

They were brought to Kabul, dressed up as locals and given the task: to go to the bazaar and kill the driver of a pickup truck, whom a CIA officer would indicate to them. They had no idea who the driver was. He had to be killed and quickly left according to the escape plan. The work was done successfully, after which the performers were given a new order.

Actually, here lies the main reason for the Blackwater scandal - what scared the American public. The symbiosis of the CIA with an undercover office, which consists of armed thugs and is engaged in carrying out assassinations (even of terrorists) is a promising start. In the absence of proper control, everything easily turns into an organized crime group. Tomorrow they will kill for hire, sell drugs and provide a criminal roof. Those. it will turn out to be the FSB. Until things reached such a cesspool, the public sounded the alarm.

In 2009-10 The Blackwater scandal reached its climax. Two more former PMC employees were found who sued Prince with quite criminal charges. The founder of Blackwater was accused of selling weapons in Iraq. That part of the money from the CIA was transferred to an unknown location (possibly stolen). That some witnesses familiar with the inner workings of Blackwater strangely did not die a natural death. That Prince is generally a psychopath, an ultra-right “Christian fundamentalist” who fancies himself a crusader of our days.

English magazine “The Economist”, issue dated August 6, 2009. Testimony of former employees of the Blackwater PMC: Erik Prince is the “last crusader,” a racist who, while in Iraq, in a narrow circle referred to Iraqis and Arabs exclusively as “ragheads or hajiis” - racist nicknames from American slang, similar to the Russian “churki”, “churkobesy”.

In general, the pressure was serious. The Blackwater issue was heard by the Congressional Intelligence Committee. The contract killing program was closed. In 2010, under threat of losing his contracts, Prince had to sell the company and leave the United States. The former Blackwater now has new owners and a new name - Academi. Erik Prince lives abroad, he has a new PMC in Abu Dhabi together with the local emir. Called "R2".

The criminal charges against Prince that were heard in America remained unproven. Now he calmly comes to the United States, he is a big fan of Trump, his sister works in his government.

The R2 PMC, which Prince commands in the Emirates, fights wherever the emir has interests - from Yemen to Libya. There are no UAE citizens there, only foreigners. Sometimes they are used as infantry in the thick of it and with heavy losses. Those. Quite Putin-like. Only the emir's mercenaries are from other countries.

While working for the Arabs, Prince did not lose his crusader spirit (at heart). He periodically speaks on the far-right American website Breitbert News. For example, in June 2016, he stated there that: “Those who threaten American Christian values ​​should be denied entry into the United States.”

And in July 2016, Prince ran over the French (this was immediately after the terrorist attack in Nice, where an Arab terrorist ran over 84 people in a truck):

“This is a war against Islamic fascism. They are fighting against us. But we are clearly not fighting against them. My question to the French: where is your Charles Martel [the king who defeated the Arabs at the Battle of Poitiers in the 8th century. AD]? Where is the man who will stop the invasion of radical Islam? What kind of leadership is at the head of France anyway?”

Having spoken once again in America about “Islamic fascism,” Prince goes to his villa in Abu Dhabi to continue his business. In the UAE, where leaving Islam is punishable by death, and for any criticism of the authorities, people simply disappear without a trace, everything suits him.

The former owner of Blackwater does not like to remember the past. “We did work for the CIA, but we were betrayed by loudmouth politicians?” , — stated he was on the air of “Russia Today” in 2014.

However, according to conservative estimates, he received $250 million from the CIA for the contract killing program alone. This money is from taxpayers, and why don’t loud-mouthed politicians ask what and how? Don't dig through your dirty laundry. Otherwise, why were they chosen in the first place?

Compare with Putin’s Russia, where the Duma is not even bawlers, but clowns who don’t care about anything: illegal PMCs, hundreds of killed mercenaries, sources of money to pay for them. With Putin’s Russia, where the special services are not controlled by anyone at all and have long turned into organized crime groups in uniform. Against this background, the scandals with the CIA and Blackwater in the United States are simply manifestations of civil society, control of parliament and independent media over the activities of the intelligence services. In Russia there is neither one nor the other.

Another small example. When Trump was elected in America, Putin’s emissaries also contacted Erik Prince through the Emir of Abu Dhabi with a proposal to establish an informal communication channel (Prince’s sister works for Trump, as already mentioned).

One of Putin's close associates came out - banker Kirill Dmitriev from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). This is an office under the control of the SVR, created in 2011 for money laundering under the guise of foreign investments (including Putin’s own money).

The meeting between Prince and Dmitriev was in the Seychelles in January 2017. Dmitriev arrived on a private jet (in this case, you can enter the Seychelles without a stamp in your passport). The meeting was secret, although the FBI found out about it anyway (Prince isn't the only one checking his email).

It ended with Prince being summoned to the US Congress Intelligence Committee to give explanations. There he claimed that he simply “drank beer” with Dmitriev in the Seychelles, discussed trade, terrorism, but nothing more. Those. The communication channel did not work here either.

However, it is significant that only the American parliament was interested in the topic. In Russia it was not even raised. Although it would seem: Putin’s close associate is going specifically to the Seychelles to meet with a distinguished CIA officer. What kind of meetings are these? What kind of billions of dollars does Dmitriev have in his fund, whose are they and where are they being spent? — In a normal country (not an African-type dictatorship), the parliament would immediately become interested. But Putin's Russia has no parliament. But in the circus such issues are not discussed.

8. Epilogue.

The average salary in Russia in 2017 according to official data is 39,144 rubles. Less taxes - 34,055 rubles. Roughly - 34 thousand in hand. Or 516 euros (average rate in 2017 - 65.9). This is after 18 years of Putin's rule.

Let's move on. There is such a country - Romania. One of the poorest in Europe. The average salary in Romania for 2017 minus taxes is 2383 Romanian lei. The average leu to ruble exchange rate in 2017 was 14.9. Thus, the average net salary in Romania is 35,506 rubles.

Once again: a Russian in Putin’s Russia earns an average of 34 thousand per hand, a Romanian in completely poor (by EU standards) Romania earns 35.5 thousand. What remains? - That's right, shoot nuclear torpedoes at the United States. Hire even more mercenaries in Syria, infiltrate Sudan, deepen friendships with drug cartels in South America and dictators in Asia.

And continue to believe that Russia is not a Third World country at all, and Putin is not the crazy king of a raw material colony, who has gone crazy from stolen money.

Victor Rezunkov
About the connections of Russian officials with crime bosses and criminal groups

Investigative prosecutors Jose Grinda And Juan Carrau This indictment named the names of Russians who were part of a criminal community operating in Spain since 1996. In particular, this group included Gennady Petrov, Alexander Malyshev, Leonid Khristoforov, Sergey Kuzmin, Ilya Traber, Viktor Gavrilenkov and others.

We are discussing this report from the Spanish investigative prosecutors with Andrey Zykov, retired lieutenant colonel of justice, former senior investigator for particularly important cases of the department for investigating crimes in the field of corruption and economics of the investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the North-Western Federal District.

– The list of well-known Russian political figures who, according to Spanish prosecutors, have long collaborated with Gennady Petrov’s criminal group includes people such as the former Minister of Defense Anatoly Serdyukov, former prime minister Victor Zubkov, head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin, former Minister of Information Technology Leonid Reiman, President of Sberbank German Gref and others. What significance, in your opinion, does the published report of Spanish prosecutors have for today's Russia?

Obviously, there is reason to again ask the question that was asked by journalists in 2000: “Who is Mister Putin?”

​​​— The report makes you think about many problems that are characteristic of Russia. And it is also obvious that there is reason to again ask the question that was asked by journalists in 2000: “Who is Mister Putin?” But the meaning of this question is different today. Today I want to understand whether he is a “tail” that is wagging his “dog”, or a “dog” that is wagging his “tail”. By “tail” I mean the very position of the President of the Russian Federation, and by “dog” I mean that mafia, which is usually said to be immortal. It appears from this report that It was not Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin who put people in many leadership positions (including security forces), but bandits directly related to the so-called Tambov criminal group.

​​For example, in 2007, the head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation became Alexander Bastrykin. Gennady Petrov and other members of the organized crime group simply call him Sasha. They call him constantly. “Sasha” himself calls Gennady Petrov and thanks not President Putin, but Gennady Petrov for making him chairman of the Investigative Committee under the Russian Prosecutor’s Office. As a sign of gratitude, he is ready to “set up a table”, “cover a clearing” and asks Gennady Petrov to invite to this “clearing” directly the person on whom his appointment depended.

Many leadership positions were filled not by Vladimir Putin, but by bandits directly related to the Tambov criminal group

​​Or another figure Igor Sobolevsky. It seems that he once worked as a lawyer, then suddenly he became Alexander Bastrykin’s deputy in the same Investigative Committee. And, again, it turns out that it was not Vladimir Putin who appointed him to this position, but Gennady Petrov and the so-called Tambov organized crime group were involved in this appointment. And Igor Sobolevsky, in a conversation with Gennady Petrov, thanks him for this appointment. If such important positions in the security forces are occupied by people who were placed there by a criminal group, and not by the President of the Russian Federation, then it is really unclear who is the “tail” and who is the “dog”... Who rules our state?

– Spanish investigative prosecutors report in their report that members of the criminal group exercised control over the criminal activities of the corresponding criminal groups located in Russia that they led. In addition, they carried out the following activities: “murders, arms trafficking, extortion, fraud, document forgery, smuggling, drug trafficking, contract beatings, illegal transactions, etc.” Andrey, how do you, the investigator, see the architecture of this organization?

Who rules our state?

- Before arresting members of this criminal group, representatives of Spanish justice had to work a lot. They had to learn about the connections that exist in Russian criminal groups, to understand the principle of centralization that is characteristic of them (when there is a boss at the top, and cronies at the bottom). It was even necessary to make some changes to Spanish legislation in order to bring these individuals to criminal liability. Indeed, when you look at the principles by which criminal groups are built, you discover an analogy with how state power is structured in Russia. Strict centralization - after all, it was precisely following this principle that Vladimir Putin at one time decided to abandon the elections of mayors and governors. And when it became clear that appointed mayors and governors steal no less than elected ones, and perhaps more, Vladimir Putin “disowned” his initiative.

It was even necessary to make some changes to Spanish legislation in order to bring these individuals to criminal liability

​​Why is strict centralization good for gangs? The godfather does not need to hide in front of his people that he is a criminal. He tells them that there are suckers, people who can and should be robbed as much as they want. But the role of the president when he is among criminals is different. He, of course, also tells his subordinates that it is possible to rob the people. But at the same time, he cannot tell the people that “you are a bunch of suckers and must obey my close bandits.” He, according to the Constitution, is the protector of this people. He develops a kind of split personality. He has to lie to both.

– Figure Gennady Petrov, the leader of the Tambov-Spanish criminal group, is very curious. Co-owner of the famous Rossiya Bank, he actively collaborated with the leaders of other criminal groups, and with politicians, and with large businessmen, such as, for example, Oleg Deripaska, Alexander Abramov, Iskander Makhmudov and others.

The figure of Gennady Petrov, the leader of the Tambov-Spanish criminal group, is very interesting
​​​Here is what is said in the report of Spanish investigative prosecutors about the pre-Spanish, Russian past of Gennady Petrov: “In the Russian criminal environment he is known as a criminal authority. The leader of the Tambov organized crime group, the existence of which has been confirmed by the Russian authorities, various police services, international data, a number of expert reports and intelligence data about their activities and the pyramidal structure of the organized crime group, the existence of which, as well as his status in it, was admitted by the accused himself. Petrov has numerous criminal records, was registered with the police many times, and served a prison sentence together with Sergei Kuzmin. On February 8, 1985, Petrov received 6 years in prison according to the verdict passed by the Zhdanovsky Municipal People's Court of the city of Leningrad. Petrov was under judicial investigation in connection with his membership in a criminal organization, where he was a member together with Alexander Malyshev. So, on September 5, 1992, about 30 people were detained as part of a certain criminal group led by Malyshev. An unregistered pistol was confiscated from Alexander Malyshev during his arrest. Members of the criminal group were accused of banditry and committing various group crimes.”

Andrey, what can you say about Gennady Petrov?

​​- His active work began in the mid-80s, but it flourished in the early 90s. I remember many publications. Nikolai Andrushchenko, one of the founders of the newspaper “New Petersburg”, as a deputy of the Leningrad City Council, was included in the offices Anatoly Sobchak and Vladimir Putin. He recalls that he was then in charge of Vladimir Putin’s office Igor Sechin. Access “to the boss’s body” was through him. Igor Sechin has a very good relationship with Gennady Petrov, and Gennady Petrov was seen quite often in Vladimir Putin’s office. They also saw there Vladimir Kumarin, and other leaders of criminal groups. At that stage you had to communicate with them. Marina Salye also wrote that in order for companies through which officials could withdraw money to exist, officials needed to deal with criminals. And the heyday of the activities of the so-called Tambov organized crime group occurred during the time of Anatoly Sobchak and his deputy Vladimir Putin.

Gennady Petrov was often seen in Vladimir Putin’s office. Vladimir Kumarin and other leaders of criminal groups were also seen there.
Nikolai Andrushchenko recalled that Anatoly Sobchak at the beginning of perestroika gave the impression of a disinterested liberal professor. However, after Vladimir Putin and Viktor Zolotov approached him, Anatoly Sobchak changed, he developed a craving for a luxurious life. And he began to sell his conscience.

– Gennady Petrov was a co-owner of Rossiya Bank from 1998 to 1999. The history of Rossiya Bank awaits its researcher. One of those on the list of Spanish prosecutors, who actively cooperates with the Tambov-Spanish criminal group, the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market, Vladislav Reznik, was from 1990 to 1995 the chairman of the board of the Rus insurance company, on the basis of which the Rossiya Bank was later created " It is noteworthy that in those years the future president of Russia, a lawyer, worked for some time under the leadership of Vladislav Reznik Dmitry Medvedev. What else is Rossiya Bank famous for?

After Vladimir Putin and Viktor Zolotov approached Anatoly Sobchak, he changed, he developed a craving for a luxurious life. And he began to sell his conscience.

​​- Gennady Petrov has a direct connection to this bank. He then (I don’t know how it is now) owned 2.2% of his shares. Another member of this team, Sergey Kuzmin, is also related to this bank - the same 2.2% shares. He is also involved in the “Spanish case”. This bank “Russia” seems to have absorbed a criminal group that has been given the right to plunder Russia. The very creation of the bank was not entirely legal. Initially it belonged to the regional committee of the CPSU, which, together with the Rus insurance company, was its founder.

I am inclined to consider the activities of the members of the Ozero cooperative and the shareholders of Rossiya Bank through the prism of Article No. 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which implies punishment for creating a criminal group.

​​So Mr. Reznik is related to this bank. Shortly before the events of 1991, very large sums were poured into this bank, about 500 million rubles. Spanish investigators drew attention to the fact that it is quite possible that Gennady Petrov lives on money from the CPSU. It turns out that when we are looking for money from the CPSU, we do not notice Bank Rossiya right under our noses. And those individuals who privatized this bank themselves took out loans from this bank and used this money to buy shares of the same bank. This bank was practically stolen from the state. His money ended up in the hands of a criminal group. In general, I am inclined to consider the activities of the members of the Ozero cooperative and the shareholders of Rossiya Bank through the prism of Article No. 210 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which implies punishment for creating a criminal group. This group was created with criminal goals that are well known to all citizens of Russia: to rob the country, to plunder it.

– The report of Spanish prosecutors provides an excerpt from a transcript of a telephone conversation between Gennady Petrov and former State Duma deputy Mikhail Glushchenko, who was sentenced this year to 17 years in prison for organizing the murder of Galina Starovoitova. Mikhail Glushchenko tells Gennady Petrov that it is necessary to understand and solve the problem of the “armless” (meaning Vladimir Kumarin). The conversation takes place in early July 2007, and in August of the same year, Vladimir Kumarin was arrested. The organizer of his arrest is General Nikolai Aulov, who now works as deputy director of the Federal Service for Drug Control Viktor Ivanov.

Everything changed in the late 1980s, when the KGB instructed its officers to do business and involve any useful people in it, including criminals.

​​​It is interesting to note that the High Court of London recently published materials from the case of the murder of a former FSB officer Alexandra Litvinenko, including dossier on Viktor Ivanov. In this dossier prepared for Alexander Litvinenko by a former FSB colonel Yuri Shvets, in particular, it is said:

“Everything changed in the late 1980s, when the KGB instructed its officers to go into business and involve any useful people in it, including criminals, who at that time were the only ones who knew how the market, at least the black one, worked. Fulfilling the order, Viktor Ivanov, who worked as the head of the anti-smuggling department of the Leningrad FSB department, established business connections with the Tambov criminal group and its leader Vladimir Kumarin. The Tambov organized crime group waged a life-and-death battle with another powerful gang, the Malyshev gang, and its leader Malyshev. In this gangster war, Viktor Ivanov took the side of Vladimir Kumarin and helped his group win. The main asset for which they fought was the St. Petersburg seaport, which was used as a transshipment base for the transport of Colombian drugs to Western Europe. As a result of this dubious business cooperation, Ivanov acquired a stake in the capital of the St. Petersburg seaport and he still manages this business. On the other hand, in the mid-1990s, the Tambov organized crime group was transformed into a holding with many branches and subsidiaries.”

In one of the conversations recorded by the Spanish service, Gennady Petrov states that Vladimir Kumarin was arrested by order of the “Tsar”. The investigation believes that Vladimir Putin was called “Tsar”
​​In one of the conversations recorded by the Spanish service, Gennady Petrov states that Vladimir Kumarin was arrested by order of the “Tsar”. The investigation believes that Vladimir Putin was called “Tsar”. Can you explain why, in your opinion, Vladimir Kumarin was arrested, because he was one of the members of the Ozero cooperative?

– This year, in Vladimir Kara-Murza’s program on Radio Liberty, I was asked a question about Vladimir Kumarin’s involvement in the murder of Galina Starovoytova. I can still confirm my answer to this question. Vladimir Kumarin had no use for the murder of Galina Starovoytova. In my opinion, either the FSB or another organization related to state power is behind this murder. The bandits had no need to kill her, especially Vladimir Kumarin.

​​At that time I was not yet familiar with the report of the Spanish investigators. When I read it, I was once again convinced that Vladimir Kumarin had nothing to do with this crime. The report recorded conversations between Gennady Petrov and Mikhail Glushchenko. As it turns out, someone nicknamed “Tsar” (and Spanish investigators believe that this is the nickname of Vladimir Putin) received the order to put Vladimir Kumarin in prison. Why could such a task come from the “Tsar”? It seems that Vladimir Kumarin was on very good terms with the “Tsar”. He was a member of the Ozero cooperative; his security forces protected this cooperative. He was in close contact with one of the founders of the Ozero cooperative, Vladimir Smirnov. Together with him, Vladimir Kumarin headed the St. Petersburg Fuel Company. The names of both appear in the SPAG case.

Vladimir Kumarin had no use for the murder of Galina Starovoytova. In my opinion, behind this murder is either the FSB or another organization related to government power
​​Members of this SPAG society, many of whom were convicted in different countries of the world, were involved in money laundering and trafficking in Colombian cocaine. Vladimir Putin was also a consultant in this company. And Vladimir Kumarin was well acquainted with Vladimir Putin. Journalist Nikolai Andrushchenko claims that he had a topless photo of Putin with Kumarin. During the search, this photograph was stolen from him.

But then the order comes: to imprison Vladimir Kumarin, and even the term is indicated - 30 years in prison. Which of the security forces was supposed to carry out the operation to imprison him? Mikhail Glushchenko was supposed to testify against Vladimir Kumarin. And his immediate imprisonment and detention were handled by Nikolai Aulov, a lieutenant general who at that time headed the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central Federal District of the Russian Federation. By the way, before this, the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Central Federal District was headed by Alexander Bastrykin. Having moved to the Investigative Committee, he gave up his place to Nikolai Aulov. Nikolai Aulov, like Alexander Bastrykin, was very closely associated with Gennady Petrov. Spanish investigators counted 78 calls between Gennady Petrov and Nikolai Aulov, with 74 calls coming from Nikolai Aulov. Gennady Petrov gave instructions to General Nikolai Aulov, and he reported to Gennady Petrov for the work done.

​​Why was it necessary to detain Vladimir Kumarin? Judging by information from journalists, the Spanish police detained this group on a tip. It came from Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned in 2006 in London. One of the suspects in this crime is State Duma deputy from the LDPR Andrei Lugovoi. He met with Alexander Litvinenko in Spain. Alexander Litvinenko collected information about criminal Russian groups operating abroad. Shortly before his arrest, Vladimir Kumarin gave an interview in which he said that he had met with Alexander Litvinenko. Moreover, Kumarin says that this meeting took place in St. Petersburg. This is completely impossible. In 2000, Alexander Litvinenko moved to London and asked for political asylum. There was no way he could return to Russia; he would have been immediately arrested here - they would have found something to show him. Obviously, this meeting took place in Spain.

Gennady Petrov gave instructions to General Nikolai Aulov, and he reported to Gennady Petrov for the work done

​​Why did Vladimir Kumarin need this meeting? He understood that he could turn out to be a “bargaining chip” in a big game. He remembered the fate of Roman Tsepov, also a person close to Vladimir Putin. The circumstances of Tsepov's death are very similar to the circumstances of Litvinenko's death. The question arises: was polonium tested as a poison on Roman Tsepov? Trying to hedge his bets, Vladimir Kumarin could have transferred some materials to Alexander Litvinenko, which could have become known to Vladimir Putin. Therefore, the “Tsar” gave the task to Gennady Petrov and other persons in Spain to discredit Vladimir Kumarin. Let Mikhail Glushchenko, who was presented as the person who ordered the murder of Galina Starovoytova, point to Vladimir Kumarin. Which is what was done. As can be seen from the report, this conversation has been going on for several months before Vladimir Kumarin’s imprisonment.

And Nikolai Aulov reports on every step of the investigative team, about how Vladimir Kumarin was detained, what was discovered, how he behaves, that the lawyer Afanasyev was not allowed to see him, that the lawyer was not allowed to bring medicine to the prison. Vladimir Kumarin has been in prison since 2007 on practically falsified criminal cases. I would not be surprised if he is recognized as the mastermind behind the murder of Galina Starovoitova. The authorities need to hide the true mastermind of her murder, and Vladimir Kumarin is a very convenient object on which this crime can now be pinned,” Andrei Zykov, a former senior investigator for especially important cases, said in an interview with Radio Liberty.

The indictment in case No. 321/2006 was transferred to the Criminal Chamber of the National Court of Spain on October 19 this year. The prosecutor's office demanded 8 years in prison for Gennady Petrov, 5 years in prison for his wife Elena Petrova and 5.5 years in prison for other defendants, including State Duma deputy Vladislav Reznik.

Today, those involved in the report of Spanish investigators live in Russia, they have no problems, and things are going well for them.
​​Today, these persons involved in the report of Spanish investigators live in Russia, they have no problems, and things are going well for them. Gennady Petrov, who returned to St. Petersburg, still lives quietly in the same house with Kozhin and the Fursenko brothers on Berezovaya Alley. His son Anton continues to run the business. Alexander Malyshev visits St. Petersburg doctors. The modest travel agency is headed by Leonid Khristoforov. Ildar Mustafin sells food products. General Nikolai Aulov heads the operational-search department of the Russian Federal Service for Drug Control in Moscow. First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on the Financial Market Vladislav Reznik carefully goes to Duma meetings. Former Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov works as industrial director for the aviation cluster of the state corporation Rostec. German Gref continues to head Sberbank. Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov continues to work as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Gazprom Corporation. The list goes on...