The Real Russia. Today. Wednesday, April 24, 2024

The war in Ukraine

• 🇺🇸 U.S. long-range ATACMS reached Ukraine secretly, weeks ago: Even before President Biden signed Washington’s new Ukraine aid on Wednesday, the U.S. secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks and used for the first time on April 17 against a Russian airfield in Crimea, reports Reuters. The missiles were reportedly contained in a $300-million military aid package approved on March 12.
• 🕊️ First face-to-face talks on returning children produce exchange deal: Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova announced at a press conference in Qatar on Wednesday that Russian and Ukrainian officials have held their first face-to-face negotiations over the return of displaced and deported children. She said the two sides agreed on a list of 29 children to be reunited with family members in Ukraine and 19 children to be reunited with relatives in Russia. Lvova-Belova also denied allegations by Ukrainian officials that nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been illegally reported to Russia since February 2022. (In July 2023, she acknowledged that more than 700,000 children were swept up in evacuations of occupied Ukraine in the first year of the war.)

🪖 Fearing mobilization, some Ukrainians are risking a treacherous swim to Romania. Scammers are cashing in. (6-min read)

Fearing they’ll be drafted and sent to the front, thousands of Ukrainian men have fled across the Tysa River into Romania. Smugglers exploit their desperation, often charging thousands of dollars to ferry people across before offering just a life jacket or a flimsy rubber boat at the river’s edge. At least 22 people have already lost their lives attempting to swim across the Tysa since the beginning of the full-scale war. While border guards try to rescue drowning men from the river’s current, getting to them can prove an impossible task. Journalists from the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda traveled to the river border for a firsthand look at the situation. Meduza shares a summary of their findings.

👋 Russia’s FSB jailed Konstantin Kochanov and promised him treason charges. Then investigators made a crucial paperwork error. (5-min read)

In 2023, on the eve of Russia’s patriotic Victory Day celebration, red Xs began appearing on streets in Moscow. Rumors that their purpose was to help attackers aim missiles at the city started spreading on Telegram almost immediately. The following day, a 25-year-old electrician named Konstantin Kochanov was arrested for drawing the marks. He’d been instructed to do so by an anonymous Telegram account that contacted him after he reached out to Ukraine’s “I Want to Live” program. After spending several months in pre-trial detention, where he awaited likely treason charges, Kochanov was released and managed to flee Russia — thanks to a lucky mistake by investigators and assistance from human rights workers.

Russian politics and society

• 🛍️ Hugo Boss nears sale of Russian stores: A government subcommittee has approved the sale of Hugo Boss’s Russian business to Stockmann. According to the newspaper Vedomosti, the Russian company acquired the assets valued at 1.8 billion rubles ($19.5 million) for just 800 million rubles ($8.7 million). Hugo Boss closed its 19 stores in Russia in 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine, but continued wholesale shipments, incurring revenue losses in 2023. The stores are expected to reopen with new branding in late 2024. 
• ⚔️ Bulldogs’ sons fighting under a carpet: Four industry insiders told the news outlet The Bell that Vladimir Kiriyenko (the son of President Putin’s domestic policy czar) is currently fighting for his job as the head of VK, the Russian social media giant. If pressured to resign, Kiriyenko’s replacement would likely be Stepan Kovalchuk (the current head of VK’s content projects group and the great-grandnephew of billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk, who’s known as “Putin’s banker”). According to The Bell, Vladimir Kiriyenko would likely return to Rostelecom or perhaps join Putin’s next cabinet as a deputy digital development minister. Stepan Kovalchuk’s ascension isn’t guaranteed, however, given his failure to generate profits and grow VK products into the “YouTube killer” the Kremlin reportedly wants.
• 🔍 Building the case against Ivanov: Investigators are reportedly collecting testimonies from multiple military contractors against now-former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly accepting the equivalent of more than 1 billion rubles ($10.8 million) in bribes.

🚨 Russian deputy defense minister reportedly charged with bribery as cover story for treason investigation (3-min read)

A day after Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested for allegedly taking bribes, becoming the highest-ranking official to face felony charges in recent years, a Moscow court has sent him to pre-trial detention for two months. According to investigators, Ivanov participated in a criminal conspiracy in which he accepted “especially large bribes” while overseeing Defense Ministry construction and repair projects. Sergey Borodin, a friend of Ivanov, has also been remanded in custody.

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The law and political freedom

• ⚖️ 15 years for another ‘traitor’: A Russian military court has sentenced a 20-year-old man in Mordovia to 15 years in prison for arson attacks against relay boxes used by trains, convicting him of “treason” and four separate “terrorist attacks.” He has been in pretrial detention since December 2022. Prosecutors argued that he set the fires in exchange for money sent by Ukrainian intelligence agencies. The defendant, reportedly named Artem Begoyan, is one of a dozen men implicated in a supposed “sabotage group.”
• 🛤️ More jail time for those youthful saboteurs: Lawmakers in Russia’s State Duma have prepared amendments that would raise the maximum penalty for nonfatal acts of sabotage from 30 to 35 years in prison. (Sabotage that results in deaths is already punishable by life imprisonment.) The draft legislation would also raise the maximum prison sentence for deliberate acts of property damage motivated by political and other forms of “hatred.” Deputy Vasily Piskarev, who chairs the committee reponsible for the reforms, says “rising enemy sabotage activity” demands stricter punishments. Last year, officials prosecuted nearly 150 people (most of them younger than 25) for damaging railway equipment.
• ⚖️ 22 years for another returned Wagnerite ex-con who killed again: A court in Kirov sentenced a former Wagner Group mercenary who fought in Ukraine to 22 years in prison for raping a local elderly woman while stabbing her to death in March 2023. The killer, reportedly named Ivan Rossomakhin, is also ordered to pay 2 million rubles ($21,500) to the family of his victim. Rossomakhin was sentenced to 14 years in prison for murder and robbery in September 2020 but was later released and pardoned by President Putin for fighting in Ukraine. When Rossomakhin returned from the war and came to the Kirov region, a local police chief reportedly held a town hall meeting where he promised that officers would patrol the town around the clock. The police chief also said Rossomakhin would be sent away by train within the week. Two days later, however, Rossomakhin killed again.

As the world turns

• 🇨🇦 An exception is made for Russian titanium: Canada recently became the first Western country to ban supplies of Russian titanium, but officials have now granted Airbus a waiver to allow its use in the company’s manufacturing and permit the import of European-built jets that rely on lightweight titanium, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
• 🍏 Durov says Apple wants him to censor Telegram: Telegram founder Pavel Durov announced on Wednesday that Apple is pressuring him to introduce some form of censorship for iOS users with Ukrainian SIM cards. He did not offer further specifics but indicated that there could be “certain changes” to access to information related to “military propaganda.”
• 💪 Arrested suspects in Leonid Volkov’s attack now include MMA champion: Polish police have arrested a decorated mixed martial artist for allegedly taking part in an attack on Russian opposition politician Leonid Volkov outside Vilnius last month. Investigative journalists at Agentstvo identified the suspect as a soccer fanatic with known criminal affiliations. Polish officials previously arrested three others (two locals and one Belarusian national) for their alleged roles in the attack on Volkov.

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