The Real Russia. Today. Read Alexey Ulyukayev's closing statement (in English); Meduza speaks to Russian-American Olympian Vic Wild; and edible massage cream comes to Chechnya

Friday, December 8, 2017

• Alexey Ulyukaev: “an elderly gladiator” and his “cardboard sword”
• Meduza speaks to Russian-American Olympian Vic Wild about the IOC's ban
• Sistema and Rosneft file dueling lawsuits
• Another attack on Jock Sturges' nude photos in Moscow
• The case against two former Rusnano officials goes back to investigators
• New evidence in the MH17 investigation
• Vkontakte confirms that it reached out to Trump, but he never reached back
• Moscow takes steps to conceal its defense contracts from prying American eyes
• Now you can buy erotic genital gels in Grozny, thanks to Kadyrov's entrepreneurial daughter

Weekend reading: Read Alexey Ulyukayev's closing statement ⚖️

On December 7, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court heard closing arguments in the case against former Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev, who is charged with soliciting a $2-million bribe from Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. Ulyukayev allegedly demanded the money for facilitating the government’s approval of Rosneft’s acquisition of a stake in the oil company Bashneft. Prosecutors have asked the court to sentence him to 10 years in prison and to fine him 500 million rubles ($8.5 million). A verdict is expected on December 15. Meduza translated Ulyukayev’s closing statement (with minor abridgements).

• Read it here in English.

An Russian-American snowboarding Olympian speaks out about the IOC's ban 🏂

On the evening of December 5, the International Olympic Committee announced its decision to ban Russia’s national team from the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea. The IOC will allow Russian athletes to compete in next year’s Olympics only if they’ve never been suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs and only if they agree to participate under the “neutral” Olympic flag. One of the Olympians affected by this decision is Russian-American snowboarder Vic Wild, who acquired Russian citizenship ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, where he won two gold medals for Moscow — a feat for which Vladimir Putin awarded him the Order for Merit to the Fatherland. Meduza spoke to Wild about the IOC’s verdict.

• Read the interview here.

The Rosneft-Sistema legal battle rages on 🛢

The Russian conglomerate Sistema announced on December 8 that it has filed a 330.5-billion-ruble ($5.6-billion) lawsuit against the oil company Rosneft over the latter’s acquisition of the oil company Bashneft. In a press release, Sistema explained that it's forced to take retaliatory measures to defend its interests. The amount claimed in the lawsuit is more than double the amounted Rosneft claimed in its two previous lawsuits against Sistema (which total about 300 billion rubles).

• In May 2017, Rosneft sued Sistema for losses it blames on Sistema’s “organization-financial manipulations” during the sale of Bashneft, which Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin estimates cost his company 170 billion rubles ($2.9 billion). The court sided with Rosneft, but awarded the company a smaller sum (136.4 billion rubles). Sistema has appealed the ruling.
• On December 7, Rosneft filed a new lawsuit against Sistema for 131.6 billion rubles ($2.2 billion) — the amount of dividends allegedly withdrawn from Bashneft to benefit Sistema.

Moscow does not believe in nudes 📸

Within hours of returning to Moscow’s Lumiere Brothers Art Gallery, Jock Sturges’ controversial nude photographs have already been splashed with an unknown liquid. The attack repeats an incident from September 2016, when a member of a far-right movement splashed urine on some of Sturges work being displayed at the same art gallery. Police detained the man responsible for the most recent act of vandalism. According to the newspaper Kommersant, whatever he sprayed was foul-smelling, meaning that Moscow could have another urine-attacker on its hands.

• Strangely, security camera footage shows a man dressed in women’s clothing pouring the liquid onto one of Struges’ photos and then quietly moving throughout the exhibition hall, while security guards ignored him.
• In late November, after a year-long review by Russia’s Investigative Committee, officials determined that 32 photos taken by Struges in the 1970s (showing nudist families in France, Ireland, and the U.S.) do not contain child pornography.

A judge sends the case against two former Rusnano officials back to the investigators 👮‍♂️👨‍⚖️

Moscow’s Cheremushkinsky District Court has sent a criminal case against two former officials at Rusnano back to police for further investigation. The corporation's former director and former financial director, Leonid Melamed and Svyatoslav Ponurov, are charged with embezzling 220 million rubles ($3.7 million). Lawyers for Rusnano welcomed the court’s decision, having argued at the beginning of the proceedings that the case’s “gross violations and contradictions” hindered a fair trial. Melamed remains under house arrest.

• Police say Melamed hired Ponurov to fix it so a company he owned won a consulting contract with Rusnano. Between February and July 2009, Melamed’s company collected 220 million rubles from Rusnano, but investigators say it never completed the contracted work and violated the terms of several investment projects.
• Anatoly Chubais, the head of Rusnano, has repeatedly defended Melamed as one of the country’s best investment experts. Earlier in the trial, he testified that Rusnano’s 220-million-ruble contract with Melamed’s company saved Rusnano at least 10 billion rubles ($168.6 million). “I think that’s pretty good,” Chubais told the court, insisting that Rusnano suffered no losses in the process that awarded the contract to Melamed’s company.

MH17 isn't over ✈️

The Insider and Bellingcat have published a joint investigation using open-source research, investigative journalism, and forensic voice analysis to determine the identity of “Delfin,” a key figure sought by the Joint Investigation Team, the Dutch-led criminal investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. The investigation has identified, “to a high degree of certainty,” Delfin as Colonel General Nikolai Fedorovich Tkachev, currently serving as Russia’s Chief Inspector of the Central Military District.

• After the report was published, the Joint Investigation Team announced that it “has taken note” of the new information and will “thoroughly investigate” the details of the research.

Re: Re: Fwd: Re: Russia collusion 💌

The Russian social network Vkontakte has confirmed that it invited Donald Trump to create a page on its website, but it says it never received a response from his representatives. Vkontakte says it welcomes Western public figures on its network and helps them create and operate their accounts. “We’d be thrilled if Mr. Trump and the presidents of other countries became Vkontakte users,” a spokesperson for the website told Meduza.

• On December 7, The Washington Post reported that an executive at Vkontakte “made several overtures to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 [...] urging the candidate to create a page on the website to appeal to Russian Americans and Russians.” The emails were reportedly sent to Donald Trump Jr. and the campaign’s social media director, Dan Scanvino, in January and November 2016. According to The Washington Post, the emails “show a new point of direct contact between an influential Russian and advisers to Trump during the 2016 race.”

No peeking, America 🔍

The Russian government has reportedly drafted a list of 126 companies (primarily enterprises owned or operated by the state) that will be permitted to reach state procurement deals in secret. Beginning on December 15, these companies’ contracts with the government will move to Russia’s platform for defense orders, where they won’t need to disclose their clients. According to Kommersant, the measure is most likely designed to counter future U.S. sanctions against persons and businesses with ties to the Russian government.

• In late November, Dmitry Medvedev signed a resolution allowing state companies to wait until July 1, 2018, to publish procurement data about suppliers and subcontractors. Sources close to Rosneft and Roscosmos told the newspaper Vedomosti that state companies don’t want to disclose data about their contractors because it would reveal how they are circumventing Western sanctions, particularly when it comes to technologies that would be difficult to replace.
• In October 2017, the Trump administration published a list of Russian-connected entities, saying it would impose sanctions on U.S. individuals and companies that did “significant” business with them. The list includes several suppliers and contractors for Russia’s Federal Security Service and Foreign Intelligence Service.

Kadyrov's daughter is peddling edible erotic cream in Grozny 😉

The father of a dozen children, Ramzan Kadyrov is no stranger to sex. But in the predominantly Muslim republic he’s led for more than a decade, sex remains a taboo subject, and Kadyrov poses as a pillar of traditional Muslim values. More than once, he has condemned sex education in schools and advocated the need for women to behave conservatively in public. This reluctance to talk openly about physical love is what makes Grozny’s new erotic boutique so remarkable, but it wouldn’t be half as astonishing were it not for the woman who’s apparently behind the effort: Aishat Kadyrova, Ramzan’s 18-year-old daughter.

• Read the story here.