The court decision referred to the supply of food to the Russian military in the self-proclaimed DNR and LNR on the territory of Ukraine. The defendant in his testimony disclosed the details of the deliveries.
“This food was intended to be sent to military units of the Russian Armed Forces, which are stationed on the territory of the DNR and LNR,” says the verdict among other things.
“The transfer of money to PIB2 G.V. as bribes was his personal initiative in connection with the extortion of a bribe from PIB2 G.V. and the latter’s threats to disrupt the delivery of products in the interests of PIB2 and Russian military personnel on combat duty in the DNR and LNR,” is another phrase from the verdict.
On December 16, a number of Russian and Ukrainian media drew attention to the decision of the Kirovsk District Court in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on the corruption case. The verdict had already been removed from the court’s website, but its copies were preserved in the archives. The court responded to the “Vot Tak” project by saying that it would not edit the verdict.
The defendant in the case was Vyacheslav Zabaluyev — a regional manager of the company “Technology”, which is a supplier to the Russian Armed Forces. He was an intermediary in the transfer of the bribe, pleaded guilty and told the court about the deliveries.
According to the defendant, deliveries were made every two weeks in columns of more than 70 cars, with a total volume of 1,300 tons. There was flour, canned food and fresh vegetables. The cost of the delivery was 130 million Russian rubles. Journalists calculated that this would be enough for 25,000 troops.
Russia also initially denied the presence of its military in Russian-occupied Ukrainian Crimea during the events of 2014. Vladimir Putin denied in the spring of that year that the “green men” in Crimea were Russian military, but in the fall he said that “this is a fact, we have never concealed it.”
A video of Putin’s words was collected by Meduza:
Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on December 16 that “it is probably a mistake of those who wrote this text,” as “it is impossible, no Russian Armed Forces have been or are stationed on the territory of the self-proclaimed republics.”
