The Real Russia. Today. Ivan the Terrible's son's terrible day, a police insurance fiasco, and new MH17 evidence

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

• The man who attacked Ilya Repin's famous Ivan the Terrible painting faces six years in prison
• Ramzan Kadyrov brings out the DNA tests to try to repatriate Russian children marooned in the Middle East
• Police close a rape investigation after apparently blaming the autistic victim
• Oleg Deripaska's holding company wants some major assistance from the government
• Yandex enters the smart speaker market
• Russia's censor gives Apple an ultimatum on Telegram
• An insurance provider to 788,000 police officers loses its license
• Prosecutors want members of a murderous gang locked up for life
• Alexey Navalny's campaign coordinator in Chelyabinsk is reportedly caught with illegal religious literature
• Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation raised a record amount of money last year
• Putin didn't know what a reporter was talking about when he asked a question about the latest MH17 findings
• Researchers turn up new evidence linking Russian military intelligence to the downing of flight MH17

Ivan the Terrible's son can't catch a break 🎨

Following last week’s attack on Ilya Repin’s famous painting, “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on November 16, 1581,” Russia’s Culture Ministry and the Tretyakov Gallery are asking the State Duma to consider stricter punishments against those who damage works of art. A top Culture Ministry official said on Monday that his office will seek the “most severe penalty” possible against the 37-year-old man from Voronezh who used a metal barrier post to smash the painting’s glass frame and strike it several times.

The assailant, Igor Podporin, says he objects to the painting because it likely depicts an event — Ivan Grozny murdering his own son — that never took place, echoing concerns by Russian Orthodox groups that have called for the piece’s removal. Podporin told reporters that he considers Ivan the Terrible to be a saint. He initially admitted to being drunk during the incident, but he later claimed he was pressured into saying he was intoxicated. Either way, Podporin isn't the first person to attack the painting: In 1913, a mentally ill man slashed it with a knife.

Repin’s painting will be restored and returned to the Tretyakov Gallery, this time in a reinforced glass case. Museum officials estimate the damage to be 500,000 rubles (about $8,000). On Tuesday, police charged Podporin with damaging a cultural monument of special national significance, which carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison.

23AndThem 🔬🇮🇶🇸🇾

Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov announced on Monday that a “mass collection of DNA material” will be conducted in Chechnya to establish the parentage and citizenship of children born in the Middle East whose mothers have been arrested there because their fathers joined local armed terrorist groups. Since last fall, Kadyrov has organized the repatriation of more than 100 women and children detained in Syria and Iraq. These women reportedly returned to Russia after promising to appear in court, if prosecutors decided to bring any criminal charges related to their activities abroad, and at least one woman was sentenced after coming home.

According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, 50 to 70 Russian women are currently imprisoned in Iraq on charges of involvement in ISIS. They are accompanied by more than 100 children. In late April, 19 Russian women were sentenced to life in prison for ties to ISIS.

Police drop a rape case involving an autistic teenager 🚨

After several months, officials in North Ossetia have closed a criminal case brought by a woman who says multiple local men raped her 18-year-old autistic daughter while she left her alone to travel to Moscow in 2017. According to the family’s lawyer, the investigators “effectively used the young woman’s developmental disorder against her,” determining that her mental state made her amenable to sleeping voluntarily with several men.

“These are the exact features that make her vulnerable among others and make it easier to commit a crime against her,” the lawyer argues, saying that the family will appeal the investigators’ decision to close the case. The young woman reportedly received threats after police started investigating the rape allegations, and one officer supposedly asked her if she was “trying to get the whole city behind bars.”

A bailout bonanza 🇺🇸💸🇷🇺

Still reeling from U.S. sanctions announced in April, Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group holding company has asked the Russian government for a series of privileges in the energy market that would save the company money while burdening ordinary consumers with higher bills. The Finance Ministry has reportedly only agreed to some regulatory relief in Irkutsk, where Rusal’s main enterprises are located, but Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak’s office has confirmed that it is discussing ways to support the companies hit by U.S. sanctions.

In early may, the holding company of another oligarch targeted by U.S. sanctions, Viktor Vekselberg’s Renova, appealed to the Russian federal government with its own bailout wish list, which included a proposed ban on imported sodas and mineral water to help its subsidiary “Baikal.”

Okay, Google, buzz off 🔊

Russia’s biggest Internet company is releasing its answer to Google Home, Apple HomePod, and Amazon Alexa. The new product, “Yandex Station,” is a smart speaker powered by Yandex’s own virtual assistant, “Alisa.” The speaker accesses Yandex’s own streaming music service and, if connected to a television, can access the online movie providers Kinopoisk, Amediateka, and Ivi.ru. The device will go on sale this summer for 9,990 rubles (about $160).

Playing hardball with Apple 🍏

Russia’s federal censor says it’s ordered Apple to delete Telegram from its App Store in Russia, and demanded that it stop sending Telegram’s push notifications to users in Russia, threatening to “take action” against iOS services, if the U.S. tech giant refuses to comply within a month.

On May 25, Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said his agency is in talks with Apple and Google to remove Telegram from their app stores. “They stick to one position, and we hold to another,” Zharov explained, describing the negotiations as a “legal dialogue” that he’s sure will “lead to results.”

Largely without success, Roskomnadzor has been trying to cut access to the instant messenger Telegram since April 16. According to one report in April, Telegram’s audience in Russia surged like never before after the government started trying to block it. How has Telegram managed to flout Russia’s censor, and why are Google and Apple so important to this process? Read Meduza’s explainer: “Russia is trying to block Telegram, but it's failing. Why?”

Police insecurity 👮‍♂️

It was hired to insure the lives and healthcare of 788,000 police officers for the next two years, but the Central Insurance Company (TsSO) just had its license revoked by Russia’s Central Bank, after the company’s management was caught deliberately filing false information. The Interior Ministry’s Internal Investigations Division opened its probe into TsSO immediately after the deal with the police, given that the company nearly lost its license in 2016 — just a year before closing the 13.7-billion-ruble ($218.6-million) police contract.

A source in the Interior Ministry told the newspaper Kommersant that TsSO only received 250 million rubles (about $4 million) of its contract before losing its license, and the ministry plans to use its own funds to cover officers’ insurance payments, until a new provider can be found (though analysts question the legality of this arrangement).

The “GTA” gang? Lock 'em up. ⚖️

Prosecutors have asked the Moscow Regional Court to sentence four “GTA” gang members to life in prison and a fifth member to 25 years behind bars, according to the news agency Interfax. The state also wants fines as high as 900,000 rubles ($14,350). The “GTA” gang suspects are charged with murdering 17 people and injuring two people in attacks on drivers in the Moscow and Kaluga regions between 2012 and 2014.

In August 2017, five gang members assaulted guards in the Moscow Regional Court, seizing their weapons. In an ensuing shootout, National Guardsmen killed three of the attackers, and a fourth assailant later succumbed to his wounds. Two security guards and one National Guardsman were injured in the incident.

Alexey Navalny's world

✝️ Have you heard the bad news?

Boris Zolotarevsky, the coordinator of Alexey Navalny’s campaign office in Chelyabinsk, is having a rough month. Already on a hunger strike while serving a 25-day jail sentence for organizing a local unpermitted anti-Putin protest on May 5, Zolotarevsky is now reportedly a suspect in an extremism case. On May 29, police apparently found banned religious literature at his home: several books printed by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which Russia’s Supreme Court outlawed in April 2017 as an extremist organization. A source confirmed to the news agency Interfax that Zolotarevsky previously filed a request with Russia's draft board to avoid military service on religious grounds.

Police detained more than 200 demonstrators in Chelyabinsk on May 5 — the most in any city, after Moscow and St. Petersburg. In most places where protesters were detained, local law enforcement have responded with misdemeanor charges, but police in Chelyabinsk launched a “hooliganism” felony investigation, which carries a seven-year maximum prison sentence.

🗳 Voting with their rubles

According to its latest financial report, Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation received more than 80 million rubles ($1.3 million) in donations last year — almost four times more than the organization raised five years ago. In 2017, nearly 30,000 people sent money to Navalny’s group. The biggest surge in donations came after the foundation released its investigative report implicating Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in a major corruption scheme. On YouTube, that report now has more than 27.1 million views.

Catching up on MH17

✈️ Putin couldn't name the plane

On May 24, when asked by a French journalist about “the decision” announced earlier that day, Vladimir Putin didn’t immediately understand the question. The reporter wanted to know Putin’s response to the Joint Investigative Team’s findings that Russia's 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade is responsible for firing the missile in 2014 that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing all 298 people on board. Standing on stage with French President Emmanuel Macron, Putin repeatedly asked “what plane” the journalist was talking about. The Joint Investigative Team’s report was hotly anticipated and covered by news outlets around the world.

• Watch the video here.

🔍 A curious role for a Russian military intelligence agent

The research group Bellingcat and the Russian news outlet The Insider have presented the results of a new joint investigation into flight MH17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, killing everyone on board. The team of journalists and researchers say they’ve managed to identify a soldier known as “Orion,” who may have coordinated pro-Russian separatists in the region and most likely played a role in the MH17 tragedy. The man in question turns out to be a Russian military intelligence officer named Oleg Ivannikov, who previously served (under a different name) as defense minister for the breakaway republic of South Ossetia.

• Meduza summarized the new findings here: “Oh hello, Mr. Oleg ‘Orion’ Ivannikov: Unmasking a chief suspect in the MH17 attack, who just happens to work for Russian intelligence”