Organised crime emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union unexpectedly quickly and forcefully, rapidly 'colonising' the new economic and political structures. Experts estimate that as much as $15 billion leaves Russia each year as either "capital flight" or laundered money from illegal transactions. Instead of investing in the Russian economy, they stashed billions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts. Instead, they played the role of old state trading monopolies, arbitraging the huge difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities and the prices prevailing on the world market. Those well-connected young men made fortunes not by creating new enterprises that increased their country's wealth, as did Carnegie (steel), Rockefeller (oil), Ford (automobiles), and Morgan (finance). While the few billionaire "oligarchs" liken themselves to the American "robber barons" of the nineteenth century, no real comparison can be drawn. Most Russian citizens lost their savings in only a few weeks. The "democrats," led by Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais, freed prices in 1992 and unleashed hyperinflation before they privatized Russia's assets. Although Gorbachev established in Russia the principles of free speech and democratic accountability, Yeltsin failed to expand the aims of glasnost and perestroika. Since Yeltsin's resignation in 1999, journalists and scholars have begun to analyze his regime more frankly. Instead, he fostered the growth of crony capitalism, deliberately enriching a handful of men in return for their political support. Semiel Vedel was sentenced to seven years in prison.Russia watchers in the West expected the Russian economy to prosper, as did the Chinese economy, once Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected Russian president, cast off the communist mantle in 1991. It has effectively criminalized independent reporting on the conflict and any criticism of the war, with the authorities targeting not only prominent opposition figures who eventually received draconian prison terms but but people not known for anti-government activity.Ī court in Moscow convicted a former police officer Monday of publicly spreading false information about the country’s military for criticizing the war in Ukraine to his friends over the phone. The sweeping campaign of repression has been unparalleled since the Soviet era. But the number of such prosecutions has mushroomed as part of the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent since the start of invasion of Ukraine. OVD-Info, which monitors protests and tracks arrests, said the case against Novikova was among the first ones launched under the new law that prohibited spreading false information about the Russian military. “I am prepared to pay the price for the right to remain a human … because I understand that there will be no acquittal,” Novikova was quoted by Russian media as saying in court.Īn average salary in Siberia’s Tomsk province, where Seversk is located, is 56,000 rubles, or just under $700, according to official government statistics. She said she didn’t have the money to pay a fine of that size. ![]() Novikova herself pleaded with the court to send her to prison rather than the alternative: a fine of at least 700,000 rubles ($8,700) that the law allowed. Prosecutors had requested a three-year prison sentence. The court in Seversk, Novikova’s hometown, imposed a fine of 1 million rubles (over $12,400), the Russian human rights and legal aid group OVD-Info quoted her husband, Alexandr Gavrik, as saying. Novikova’s posts on the messaging app Telegram decried the invasion and criticized the Russian government. Marina Novikova, a 65-year-old lawyer, was found guilty of “spreading false information” about the Russian army, which was made a criminal offense after President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine more than 14 months ago. ![]() TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - A court in Russia convicted a woman from a Siberian city over social media posts condemning the war in Ukraine and punished her Friday with a steep fine even though both she and the prosecution asked for a prison sentence.
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