July 8:
Former Moscow regional finance minister Alexei Kuznetsov became the latest official to fall on corruption charges. UPI reports that Russian investigators charged Kuznetsov with leading a criminal gang accused of embezzling $320 million between 2005 and 2008, $105 million of it in public funds. Officials announced that they will demand extradition of the ex-finance minister from France, where he was arrested. In a clear reference to opposition criticism over the ongoing trial against Alexei Navalny, the Federal Investigative Committee’s spokesman added that “for those who are trying to once again blame these consequences on some kind of political agenda, I want to remind them that the Investigative Committee has been and remains committed to just one public agenda – on behalf of the people to fight corruption.”
July 9:
Another reporter has been gunned down in Russia, this time in the restive North Caucasus region. The Associated Press reports that Akhmednabi Akhmednabiyev, editor of a local weekly newspaper, was shot dead outside his car after repeated threats and an earlier attempt on his life. Akhmednabiyev worked as chief political correspondent at Novoye Delo, a paper known for criticizing authorities and uncovering corruption in the government. Russia ranks among the most dangerous countries for journalists; dozens have been killed for similar reasons over the last decade.
July 10:
As many as 215 nongovernmental organizations in Russia are currently in violation of the controversial “foreign agents” law, according to Russian authorities. the New York Times quoted Russia’s general prosecutor, Yuri Chaika, as noting that the majority of these organizations “either suspended their operations or abandoned foreign financing” after the law went into effect. Chaika added, however, that those 215 organizations received a cumulative 6 billion rubles (about $180 million) from foreign sources in the three years before the law came into effect. Seventeen organizations, Chaika claimed, received those funds from foreign embassies. Officials believe twenty-two groups continue to use international funds “in defiance of the law.” While it is unclear exactly how many of the 215 organizations failed to register out of ignorance as opposed to under protest, the number clearly illustrates that the embattled law is nowhere near achieving widespread acceptance.
July 11:
Russian officials announced plans to incorporate a service branch responsible for the country’s information security into the Russian Army as soon as this year. The decision is hardly a surprise, according to Russia Beyond the Headlines, after Russian President Vladimir Putin told a Security Council meeting only a week ago that Russia “has to be prepared to counter threats in cyberspace effectively.” The new service branch’s duties will reportedly include monitoring and processing information coming from the outside, as well as countering cyber threats. “A concept for using cyber weapons was developed six or seven years ago,” noted Aleksandr Sharavin, Director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis. “Today, this sort of weapon is second in importance only to nuclear arms.”
After an international outcry, after retaliatory legislation in the United States and other Western countries, and after numerous domestic protests, a Moscow court found deceased whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky guilty of fraud. “Today’s verdict will go down in history as one of the most shameful moments for Russia since the days of Joseph Stalin,” said William Browder, Magnitsky’s former boss, who was also found guilty in abstentia. “This is the first conviction of a dead man in Europe in the last ten centuries...he worst part of today’s verdict is the malicious pain that the Russian government is ready to inflict on the grieving family of a man who was killed for standing up to government corruption and police abuse.” The Washington Post reports that the U.S. State Department expressed “disappointment” at Magnitsky’s conviction, while Senator Benjamin Cardin, sponsor of the Magnitsky Act, added that “sadly, we have come to expect this sort of behavior from the Putin regime.” Browder, who currently resides in London and has sponsored a years-long investigation in to the case, plans to appeal his conviction.
July 12:
Officials estimate that corruption in the armed forces cost the state budget over 4.4 billion rubles ($135 million) in the just the first six months of this year. This number marks a 450 percent increase from last year, reports the Moscow Times, while incidents of fraud linked to abuse of authority also sharply increased. Members of the Defense Ministry’s public council tried to throw blame on deposed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, who led the armed forces from 2010-2012, claiming the abuses were only discovered this year because “checks take a long time.” Critics scoffed at the claim, arguing that the Kremlin can do little to stem the corruption, because “there can be no real fight against corruption in a separate sphere when the whole system of state government is based on corruption.”