This was Russia today, Tuesday, October 15, 2024 The FSB plot that disappeared half a billion dollars, Americans push a Vietnam draft model on Kyiv, and life in prison for violent armed rebellions
Howdy, readers! Vladimir Putin pondered nuclear power on Tuesday, meeting with Rosatom CEO Alexey Likhachev for a company performance review that included talk of quantum computing and the 2.5 million people living in Rosatom’s 31 “nuclear cities.”
Today’s newsletter is 1,850 words — a nine-minute read.
Subscribe here to receive this daily newsletter directly. You know, in your inbox or whatever.
Today’s main story: The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant’s lacking protection against military strikes
A mere stone’s throw: Earlier this month, the Russian media reported that Ukrainian drones had been shot down almost within spitting distance of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. The outlet Verstka spoke with a nuclear power expert and sources within Russia’s state-owned atomic energy corporation Rosatom to determine how well-defended the Kursk NPP is against military threats (and what might happen if it’s hit).
Well, is it well-defended? Not really. The plant’s “beyond design-basis accident scenarios” don’t account for possible military strikes. The most vulnerable point is likely the facility’s cooling pools for spent fuel removed from the reactors. If hit, the blast could spread radioactive contamination like a “dirty bomb.”
Newer nuclear power plants, including the Kursk II NPP, are designed to withstand the direct impact of an airplane crash, a standard introduced after the September 11 attacks in the United States. But that’s not the case with the old Kursk plant.
(2) The FSB plot that disappeared half a billion dollars
A new look at an old story: “Kirill Cherkalin’s billions” (rubles, not dollars) got another look last week from Novaya Gazeta special correspondent Irek Murtazin, whose crime-beat reporting is invariably detailed, chalked full of saucy rumors, and brain-numbingly long. This new article was published 10 days after a military court overturned the bribery conviction of Dmitry Frolov (a former deputy head of the FSB’s economic crimes division) and closed the case against him.
The gist: Murtazin says the authorities spent years pursuing Frolov and his accomplices on flimsy bribery and fraud charges to conceal a vast FSB criminal conspiracy in Russia’s banking industry.
Let’s break down the sequence of events, but beware that it’s a winding road.
Mystery Incorporated: Before his arrest in April 2019, Kirill Cherkalin was the fast-rising, well-connected head of the FSB Economic Security Directorate’s enormously powerful bank crimes division. The “first stone in the avalanche” that exposed “Cherkalin’s billions” was the arrest of one of his subordinates in a different extortion case. Colonel Mikhail Gorbatov rolled on his boss to save his own skin, testifying to a bribery scheme involving Cherkalin.
- According to Murtazin, then-FSB Internal Affairs head General Alexey Komkov handled Gorbatov’s testimony very cautiously, knowing that Cherkalin enjoyed good relationships with then-FSB First Deputy Director Sergey Smirnov and then National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.
- Komkov reported Gorbatov’s claims to FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov, who ordered a secret investigation, bringing in two of Cherkalin’s agency adversaries who’d previously failed to oust him from the FSB’s central office. The surveillance of Cherkalin and others led to raids that uncovered staggering amounts of cash.
Cherkalin’s other disappearing act: A few weeks after his arrest, Cherkalin followed in Gorbatov’s footsteps by seeking a plea deal. In a signed statement, he named a powerful retired FSB general who allegedly “provided ‘protection’ to several credit organizations” during his service.
- Speculation on Telegram says this retired FSB general was likely Oleg Feoktistov, whose work in protective custody and son-in-law link him to a businessman who claims to have been defrauded by Cherkalin and his associates.
- Instead of leading to an even higher-profile prosecution, however, Cherkalin’s statement soon vanished from his case materials, and the investigation was transferred to a less experienced official and merged with lesser fraud charges against Frolov and another retired FSB officer.
- To accommodate this more “vegetarian” prosecution, Cherkalin disavowed his earlier confession and submitted a new one that mentioned neither the FSB general’s name nor the banks involved in the protection racket. He was ultimately sentenced to seven years but went free in February 2024.
In November 2019, by accident or on purpose, information leaked to the press that Cherkalin testified that most of the 12 billion rubles discovered at his apartments in police raids belonged to Valery Miroshnikov, the former deputy head of the Deposit Insurance Agency — Russia’s state corporation responsible for various insolvency procedures. (Miroshnikov fled the country immediately after Cherkalin’s arrest.)
So, what was this vast conspiracy? Irek Murtazin’s sources claim that Miroshnikov, Cherkalin, and others learned about roughly 2 trillion rubles (more than $20.6 billion in today’s currency) in capital shortfalls at Russian banks accumulated between 2013 and 2017 and offered the banks’ owners a grace period of several months to purge their records, transfer money to foreign accounts, flee the country, and pose abroad as “victims of the regime” — all in exchange for up to 30 percent of the size of individual institutions’ capital shortfalls. (The state then rescued or restructured these banks at taxpayers’ expense.)
- According to Murtazin, Miroshnikov kept half of the proceeds from the criminal scheme, Cherkalin went home with a quarter, and their other accomplices claimed the remaining 25 percent. Murtazin reasons that the cash found at Cherkalin’s homes was all his, meaning the total profits were roughly 50 billion rubles (more than $516 million in today’s currency).
Lest ye forget: Alexander Zheleznyak says Kirill Cherkalin offered him “protection” in 2014. Zheleznyak is one of the bankers who donated to Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation allegedly in return for “reputation laundering,” according to reports like Maxim Katz’s recent (and controversial) investigation.
Share this story from Novaya Gazeta
We got The Beet. Don’t miss Meduza’s weekly newsletter (separate from the one you’re reading here)!
(3) Meanwhile, in Russia
👨👧 Alexey Moskalev has been freed from prison and reunited with his daughter after serving a 22-month sentence for “discrediting” Russia’s Armed Forces in social media posts. His case made international headlines when he fled house arrest in March 2023 and was apprehended in Minsk. Police began investigating Moskalev after his daughter was reprimanded at school for submitting an anti-war drawing in art class. (OVD-Info, Telegram)
💣 A bomb exploded in Moscow on Tuesday, damaging a car and injuring three bystanders, including a six-year-old boy. Eyewitnesses reportedly told police that a man tried to remove an explosive device from the hood of his vehicle when it detonated. The bomber’s motives are unknown, but rumors circulating on Telegram suggest a business dispute. (Mash, Telegram)
🧑💻 The Russian social network VK has launched a grant program to distribute 100 million rubles (more than $1 million) to bloggers creating long-form videos. Applicants must prove their individual entrepreneur tax status and have at least 1,000 subscribers, and VK will prioritize non-commercial, educational, and entertainment content.
- VK’s plans coincide with the Russian authorities’ unofficial decision to throttle local YouTube speeds. (RBC)
🤰 Legislation banning “childfree propaganda” won the State Duma Information Policy Committee’s endorsement two days before the vote on the bill’s first reading. Supporters have defended the law as a national security priority amid Russia’s flagging birthrate. (Russia’s State Duma)
🪖 A former Wagner Group mercenary in the city of Chita reenlisted with Russia’s military and successfully halted criminal proceedings against him on charges of repeatedly stabbing a woman in April. The man utilized legislation enacted earlier this month that allows felony defendants to suspend their trials by signing up to fight in Ukraine. RFE/RL journalists identified the perpetrator as a man who escaped an earlier 22-year prison sentence for rape and double homicide by joining Wagner Group. (RFE/RL)
👋 Yevgeny Prigozhin’s abandoned propaganda empire has been formally dissolved, more than a year after shutting down. Prigozhin suspended Patriot Media Holding Company after his failed summer 2023 insurrection, and the enterprise failed to find a buyer despite rumors that Yuri Kovalchuk’s National Media Group might be interested. (Kepka Prigozhina, Telegram)
✊ Stricter penalties are coming for armed rebellions in Russia. The State Duma adopted the first reading of legislation that would put life imprisonment in play for such offenses (up from a maximum punishment of 20 years) in the event of death or “other serious consequences.”
- The same bill introduces liability exemptions for those accused of armed rebellion if they “voluntarily and expeditiously” cooperate with the authorities to prevent harm and talk down insurrectionists. (Russia’s State Duma)
(4) The Ukraine war
🗞️ Ukrainian presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn denied allegations that the Zelensky administration (and specifically Lytvyn himself) has exerted “sustained and systemic pressure” on Ukrainska Pravda and several of its reporters. Lytvyn says the news outlet has never even contacted him for a comment, though journalists there say his office ignored them at least once. (Liga.net)
🇺🇸🇻🇳 Zelensky chief of staff adviser Serhiy Leshchenko says both Democrat and Republican U.S. politicians have tried to pressure Ukraine to lower its mobilization age from 25 to 18, citing America’s draft during the Vietnam War as a supposedly successful policy. (Meduza)
🚨 Ukrainian officials in the Kharkiv region ordered mandatory evacuations of several cities “due to the worsening military situation” and fears of critical infrastructure failing this winter. (Ukrinform)
💥 A Ukrainian drone hit a passenger minivan in Belgorod and injured eight people, including four minors, the region’s governor reported on Tuesday. (Vyacheslav Gladkov, Telegram)
🆘 Relatives of civilians caught in the occupied Kursk region say both the Russian and Ukrainian militaries claim that the other side is unwilling to discuss humanitarian escape corridors. (BBC Russian)
(5) As the world turns
🇳🇱 In Amsterdam? Mark your calendars for November 26. The Moscow Times is hosting Women Against the Kremlin, a special event featuring journalists Ekaterina Kotrikadze and Zhanna Agalakova, and human rights activists Anastasia Shevchenko, Tanya Lokshina, and Ksenia Maximova. (Tickets are available here.)
🇧🇾 Roman Protasevich, a former opposition activist in Belarus, granted an interview to Russian media personality Ksenia Sobchak to discuss his dramatic aircraft arrest in 2021 and subsequent cooperation with the Lukashenko regime. (Meduza)
🏦 Russian monetary officials are willing and even planning to “let the ruble reach 100 to the dollar,” as it will “benefit the state budget amid plans for increased spending next year.” However, the Central Bank might need to raise its key rate again “to offset collateral damage from the weak ruble in the form of high inflation.” (Bloomberg)
☠️ Former Russian spy Sergey Skripal’s attempted assassination “was so sensitive that Putin himself must have given it the go-ahead,” a senior Foreign Office official told an inquiry set up to examine Dawn Sturgess’s death.
- British officials also say the Russian agents discarded “enough poison to kill thousands of people,” acting with “a grotesque disregard for human life.” (The Guardian)
🏭 Putin soft-nationalized another foreign company’s Russian assets on Tuesday, placing the American-owned Universal Beverage Company’s local dairy and canning enterprises under the Federal Property Management Agency’s “temporary” management. (Meduza)
🇨🇿 The Czech Republic is returning its ambassador to Moscow with the appointment of former Deputy Defense Minister Daniel Kostoval. Prague withdrew his predecessor, Vitezslav Pivonka, in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (Ceske Noviny)
No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Donate here.