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Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies.
The previous issue is here.
Recent Analysis and Translations:
– Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov Has Invented A Version Of History To Meet His Needs
– Getting The News From Chechnya â The Crackdown On Free Press You May Have Missed
– Aurangzeb, Putin, Realism and a Lesson from History
– Why the World Should Care About the Assassination of Boris Nemtsov
UPDATES BELOW
Banking records obtained by the OCCRP show that cellist Sergei Roldugin, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s old friend, received money from an offshore company at about the same time it was being used to steal money from the Russian government in the notorious Sergei Magnitsky case.
After the money was fraudulently taken from the Russian treasury, it disappeared into a series of paper companies in early 2008. Two of those companies were the Moldovan-registered Elenast-Com SRL, located in a Communist-era block of flats, and Bunicon-Impex SRL, which claimed headquarters in an abandoned building in Chisinau.
Elenast and Bunicon sent a share of the stolen money in February 2008 to a BVI company, Vanterey Union Inc., which then wired funds to Roberta Transit LLP, a UK- based company. Roberta Transit, in turn, sent that money along with money from other related companies (US$ 2 million in all) to Delco. The payments flowed in quick succession, all of them reaching Delco in the same month.
Besides Vanterey, three other companies used in the Magnitsky case–Protectron Company Inc., Wagnest Ltd., and Zarina Group Inc.–also sent funds to Roberta Transit. Like Vanterey, Zarina Group also received money from the two Moldovan paper companies in February 2008.
Two months later, Delco purchased the Rosneft shares from Roldugin, sending the cellist’s company US$ 800,000 in May, 2008.
TV Rain noted that Magnitsky appealed to the Investigative Committe back in 2008 saying that several companies had been seized from Hermitage Capital, and that funds stolen from the Russian budget using a scheme of returning overpaid VAT were showing up on the accounts of the stolen companies.
Magnitsky himself was then arrested, beaten, and refused medical treatment and died in custody. The official cause of death was “heart attack.”
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
“When just a few meters remained before the border line, border guards tried to stop him [the driver]. Although the perpetrator did not react and aimed his all-terrain vehicle toward the border guards blocking his path. The border guards were forced to use weapons.”
It is not known if the FSB made any contact with Ukrainian authorities. Russia essentially controls the border in this area and for the last two years has allowed tanks and troops to cross into Ukraine to wage war in the Donbass. The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission has access to only a few areas along the Russian-Ukrainian land border of some 2,000 kilometers.
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
The following stories were taken from Novaya Gazeta, Izvestia, Vedomosti, Interfax, and Jamestown.
— ‘Acoustic Cannons’ to be Used on Demonstrators
— ‘I Never Saw Such a Deadly Scene’: 30th Anniversary of Chernobyl
— Pedestal Design for Moscow Vladimir the Great Statue Revealed
— Combatting the Closure of Space for Civil Society in Eurasia
— Girkin: ‘They Are Fabricating a Murder Case Against Me‘
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick