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2-26-19 After a trial held behind closed doors, the Moscow regional military court on February 26 convicted former FSB officer
Sergei Mikhailov and Ruslan Stoyanov, chief of the computer incidents investigation team at Kaspersky Lab, of passing secret information to foreign intelligence agencies.
Mikhailov, who worked in the FSB’s information-security division, was sentenced to 22 years in prison and Stoyanov to 14 years, Russian news agencies reported. Mikhailov was also stripped of his colonel's rank and his decorations. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-sentences-cyberexperts-to-long-jail-terms-for-treason-/29791990.html
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The former chief of the cybercrime department at Russia's FSB security service, Sergei Mikhailov (left), and Ruslan Stoyanov, a former employee of the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab at their court hearing in Moscow on February 26.
The unit, called the Center for Information Security, had working partnerships with the FBI and other Western agencies, cooperating in cracking down on things like spammers, child pornography, cyberextortion, and other issues. Its deputy director, Colonel Sergei Mikhailov, was widely believed to have been responsible for dismantling a pernicious cybercrime operation in the late 2000s. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rferl.org%2Fa%2Frussia-hacker-mikhailov-stoyanov-fsb-scandal-for-russian-security-agency%2F29794092.html&psig=AOvVaw33-qP_uzJox6MPCD4Y1eVl&ust=1570316074778000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCOCNqrDZg-UCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE
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2-23-19 The treason charges are uniquely a product of Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic justice system: the defendants are on trial because eight years ago they allegedly shared confidential documents about a convicted Russian cybercriminal with an American colleague.
Stoyanov’s arrest shocked the computer security community. The Kaspersky analyst is well respected internationally, and has no obvious connection to the swamp of corruption and backstabbing synonymous with Russia’s intelligence agencies. But in a country that routinely protects its criminal hackers, and sometimes conscripts them into state service, cross-border cooperation can evidently amount to high treason….
To that stew of alleged information-sharing and suspicious street addresses, prosecutors have sprinkled new specifics of their own atop Vrublevsky’s original claims, according to press reports and accounts of people involved in the trial. They charge that the defendants didn’t just share information with Zenz and possibly other Americans, but that they passed along government documents, for which they were collectively paid an astounding $10 million.
The key thread, as alleged by prosecutors, conveniently weaves through three of the defendants back in 2010. That’s when Mikhaylov allegedly loaded up a CD with confidential material from the ChronoPay probe, then gave that CD to his subordinate, Dmitry Dokuchaev, who in turn gave it to Ruslan Stoyanov. Stoyanov allegedly brought the disk with him when he attended Microsoft’s invitation-only Digital Crimes Consortium conference in Montreal, Canada, where he supposedly slipped the disk to Zenz.
Zenz calls this claim ludicrous, and late last year she made a bold offer to the panel of military judges overseeing the trial. From her new home in Germany—she took a new job and left Russia in 2016—she wrote a letter asking to testify at the treason trial. In the letter she affirmed that she didn’t receive documents, on CD or in any other fashion, from her friend Stoyanov, nor did she see him pass a disk to anyone else at the Montreal event. “I was literally with him all day at that conference,” she said. “I was with him all day every day and he didn’t give anyone a CD.”
Zenz wrote the court that she wanted to testify at the trial—a gutsy move for an American now regarded a cunning spymaster by the Russian government. “I requested the option to testify at the embassy here because it’s a lot safer and you’re allowed to do that in the court system there,” she said. “But if I had to, I’d go. I had a big fight with my husband over it.”
To her surprise the military judges ignored the letter, and she says they also rejected a request from Stoyanov’s lawyer to call Zenz as a witness. “Instead the main witness is a Russian criminal convicted of breaking Russian laws in Russia, and coincidentally the accused happens to be the people who put him in jail for those crimes,” she said. https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-accused-her-of-being-a-us-spy-she-offered-to-go-to-moscow
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As BarentsObserver reported,
Moseev was accused by the Federal Security Service FSB for cooperating with Norwegian secret services to destabilize the social-political situation in Arkhangelsk and for
In the court hearings today neither Norway nor any sort of international cooperation that Moseev and his Pomor organization have been involved in, was mentioned. Moseev was only accused on the article 282 in the penal code: incitement of ethnic hatred.
The background for the charge is a comment the FSB believes Moseev placed in ”Ekho Russkogo Severa” in April this year, where Russians were called “scum”. The editor of the web site found out that this comment had been sent from Moseev’s ip-address and told the FSB about this. Moseev denies having posted this comment and claims that his computer was turned off at the moment when the comment had been posted.
“I don’t admit any guilt”, Moseev said during the court hearing. “I didn’t have and I don’t have now any intention or aim to excite hatred towards the ethnic group “Russians” as well as towards any other ethnic group. I devote my work to entirely opposite affairs. I try to bring people and nations together.”
“My professional and social activities are aimed at establishing peaceful and tolerant relations between different nationalities. The indictment is made upon an unclear and vague phrase which hasn’t even been announced in the indictment, and if it had been announced everybody would understand the absurdity of it because the word “Russians” isn’t even in this phrase, so there isn’t any focus on anyone. I think this is complete nonsense. I absolutely deny any guilt and I consider that there can only be the verdict of not guilty”.
Outside the court a small group of Russian “patriots” had gathered, carrying slogans calling Pomor traitor of Russian national interests and separatist.
https://barentsobserver.com/en/society/2012/11/no-charge-high-treason-21-11
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Neyelov in custody on charges of high treason for two months. According to a source close to the investigation, Neyelov, an expert at the Center of Strategic Environment, known for his commentaries on the activities of private military companies, has been leaking top secret information abroad. He is facing up to 20 years behind bars. The case is classified as confidential.
https://barentsobserver.com/en/society/2012/11/no-charge-high-treason-21-11
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3-2013 Ivan Moseev is prescribed a fine of 100,000 rubles (€2,500) in the verdict saying he is guilty of violating Article 281, part 1 of the criminal code of Russia. The paragraph covers actions aimed at derogation of a group of persons on the features of nationality and origination being made publicly with use of mass media aids.
The accusation was based on the single word Ivan Moseev according to the version of investigation used in his comments on the Internet forum in April last year. Here the Russians were called “Scum.” The editor of the web site found that this comment had been sent from Moseev’s IP-address and informed FSB about this. Moseev totally denies his guilt saying that he has never used the words abusive to the Russian nation and considering Pomors as sub-ethnic group of Russian people.
His position was supported by most of the public organizations in the region and on the federal level including many national patriotic ones. Amnesty International is also monitoring the case. To BarentsObserver, Ivan Moseev says the charges making the fundament for Friday’s court ruling is one of the dirtiest cases fabricated by the regional FSB service.
“I am totally low-abiding citizen. I am not a radical or an extremist. I have never taken part in the manifestations and demonstrations. I have never had any contradictions with the law, never had taken any criminal or administrative proceedings. On the contrary, I always tried to assist to an efficient dialogue between the powers and society,” says Moseev. https://arctic-consult.com/archives/14362/amp................................
11-6-18
Moscow’s Lefortovsky court on October 26 ruled to place
According to open sources, Neyelov graduated from the St. Petersburg State University, with a degree in international relations. He specializes in private military companies, state-of-the-art warfare, military doctrines and strategies. https://tass.com/society/1029486
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11-9-18 Neelov was detained in St. Petersburg when he left his office for lunch on October 25. He was then taken to the local Federal Security Service (FSB) office and later transferred to Moscow, where on October 26 he was placed in Lefortovo prison where he will be remanded for two months.
On the day he was detained, FSB officers searched his parents’ apartment. “It was seven o’clock in the evening, my husband and I were having dinner,” Neelov’s mother Marina Belogolovtseva recalled.
“You can say they broke in, all in black. They said they had a search warrant. I asked: ‘What are you looking for?’ They replied: ‘You will find out later.’ Well, I told them: ‘Search, maybe you can find gold and diamonds.'”
“Then I learned about the detention of my son. This is absurd, he was brought up in a different way, he has no one to take after in being a spy.” Neelov’s case has reportedly been labeled “secret.” According to authorities, he passed abroad information deemed a state secret.
An Interfax agency source claimed that Neelov did not admit guilt. “Initially when he was interrogated he did not admit guilt and did not understand at all why he was accused of high treason,” the source said.
“Oprichniks shackled my friend just because he did his job. Vladimir Neelov is a publicist, not a criminal,” Timur Groshev wrote on Facebook, using the term given to members of the Oprichnina, the personal force of Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
Iulia Rybakova, another friend of Neelov’s, described the arrest as “some kind of madness. My classmate, Vladimir Neelov, was arrested. I would rather believe that Petersburg was founded by aliens than this accusation. We categorically disagree with him on most ideological issues, argued repeatedly until blue in the face. It is a fact that Neelov and treason are two incompatible things,” she wrote in a social media post. “Either this is a mistake or someone for some reason decided to settle accounts with him.” Neelov is married to a woman from Crimea. She gave birth there in 2016, and the couple later returned to St. Petersburg.
The expert graduated from the Faculty of International Relations at St. Petersburg State University. He also took a course on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament at the Central Institute for Advanced Studies “Rosatom.” ...POC member Evgeny Enikeev wrote in a Facebook post on November 7 that Neelov refused a private lawyer his wife hired for him, saying that the lawyer provided by the state would be enough.
“It looked suspicious. After I started telling Vladimir that a state lawyer might not always strive to defend the interests of his client, our conversation was interrupted,” Enikeev wrote. “Because of this, I did not have time to ask about the reasons for such a decision, in particular, whether there was pressure from the investigator or SIZO’s [remand prison] officers. https://thedefensepost.com/2018/11/09/russia-neelov-wagner-expert-arrest-treason/
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11-7-18 Back in June, special services detained a former military Andrei Zhukovas well as an inhabitant of Sevastopol, Evgeny Yanko, who had been previously convicted of pedophilia. The former has been accused of high treason while the latter – of spying against Russia. Both men were active users of numerous Internet forums where they wrote about the history and present of various military units. Nevertheless, Russian special services aim first and foremost to hit scientists specializing in the armaments industry. For example, Viktor Kudryavtsev, 74, has also been accused of high treason. According to investigators, he leaked secrets on military technologies deployed in Russian Kinhzal and Avangard missiles to some NATO countries. Aleksey Temirev, 64, a scientist from the southern city of Novocherkassk, was convicted of high treason and passing secret information on an electric power supply in Russian submarines to the Vietnamese authorities.
Only in June and July this year Russian courts have launched six espionage and high treason cases. All of them were classified as top secret, which seems perfectly convenient for the services; such a solution limits the ability to assess whether suspicion could be justified and based on solid evidence. Nonetheless, according to the statements issued by defendants of all the accused men, such alleged secret data, which they had been supposed to pass to foreign countries, can be easily found in publicly available scientific publications in both Russian and foreign periodicals. https://warsawinstitute.org/spy-hunting-russia/
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10-23-2012 “This overly broad and vague definition seems deliberately designed to make people think twice before doing international human rights advocacy,” said
Hugh Williamson, Europe director at Human Rights Watch. “In Russia’s new political climate, it’s reasonable to believe the authorities’ threshold for interpreting what ‘harming Russia’s security’ means will be quite low.”...
The law’s adoption comes amid a broad crackdown on Russia’s civil society that has been carried out since Putin’s return to the Kremlin. Laws rammed through the Duma in the summer imposed new restrictions on public assemblies, re-criminalized libel and imposed new restrictions on internet content. The adoption of several of these laws, like the treason law, was carried out with hitherto unprecedented speed.
Public smear campaigns on state television have targeted prominent political opposition figures. The authorities have thoroughly demonized Golos, an election monitoring group, conflating the work it does to monitor the vote with alleged support for the opposition. https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/10/23/russia-new-treason-law-threatens-rights
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11-7-18 Back in June, special services detained a former military Andrei Zhukovas well as an inhabitant of Sevastopol, Evgeny Yanko, who had been previously convicted of pedophilia. The former has been accused of high treason while the latter – of spying against Russia. Both men were active users of numerous Internet forums where they wrote about the history and present of various military units. Nevertheless, Russian special services aim first and foremost to hit scientists specializing in the armaments industry. For example, Viktor Kudryavtsev, 74, has also been accused of high treason. According to investigators, he leaked secrets on military technologies deployed in Russian Kinhzal and Avangard missiles to some NATO countries. Aleksey Temirev, 64, a scientist from the southern city of Novocherkassk, was convicted of high treason and passing secret information on an electric power supply in Russian submarines to the Vietnamese authorities.
Only in June and July this year Russian courts have launched six espionage and high treason cases. All of them were classified as top secret, which seems perfectly convenient for the services; such a solution limits the ability to assess whether suspicion could be justified and based on solid evidence. Nonetheless, according to the statements issued by defendants of all the accused men, such alleged secret data, which they had been supposed to pass to foreign countries, can be easily found in publicly available scientific publications in both Russian and foreign periodicals. https://warsawinstitute.org/spy-hunting-russia/
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10-23-2012 “This overly broad and vague definition seems deliberately designed to make people think twice before doing international human rights advocacy,” said
The law’s adoption comes amid a broad crackdown on Russia’s civil society that has been carried out since Putin’s return to the Kremlin. Laws rammed through the Duma in the summer imposed new restrictions on public assemblies, re-criminalized libel and imposed new restrictions on internet content. The adoption of several of these laws, like the treason law, was carried out with hitherto unprecedented speed.
Public smear campaigns on state television have targeted prominent political opposition figures. The authorities have thoroughly demonized Golos, an election monitoring group, conflating the work it does to monitor the vote with alleged support for the opposition. https://www.hrw.org/news/2012/10/23/russia-new-treason-law-threatens-rights
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