Russian News Of Politician’s Arrest Unravels Another Exhaustive Web Of Putin-Led Corruption
In May of this year, Radio Free Europe‘s Russian news report talked about a Russian blogger and anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny as he was being sought after by Kremlin prosecutors for his investigations against corruption within Russia’s state-owned companies.
The same source on April 13 also reported that Navalny asked that a Russian news television program’s “evidence” accusing him of being a paid agent for the U.S. and Britain be made to question the validity of the investigations against him.
Just recently, The Moscow Times reported on the arrest of Nikita Belykh who has been the governor of Kirov for seven years, whose lawyer told the Russian news source that he was on a hunger strike, on top of information which claims he is coming clean.
Belykh was arrested over a week ago and is accused of taking a bribe of 400,000 euros or ($444,000), and depending on which side of the Russian news propaganda machine you’re on, there is proof of it.
Belykh claims that he was set up, which is nearly impossible to verify given the history of Russian cover-ups, assassinations, corruption, and more.
The source refers to images of Belykh in a Moscow restaurant with stacks of money on a table in front of him, with a sick look on his face and then another image of fluorescent ink on his hands, matching the ink on the money.
Why the arrest of Governor Nikita Belykh has #Russia's elites worrying: https://t.co/YwGTAAH5Ga #corruption pic.twitter.com/zgXsZHfuFc
— The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) July 1, 2016
There is also a connection being made between him and Navalny, who the authorities are interested in for his effort to expose Russia’s leadership, which he’s been doing for years.
The article by The Moscow Times provides some background on the governor of Kirov Belykh, who was himself a businessman, and it questions how he could have gotten tied up with a couple of companies who might have tried to bribe him, but the news article describes too many unsavory characters to mention here.
To add, Alexey Navalny’s brother was recently denied parole from a prison for embezzlement, which could be another setup against him as Alexey has been jailed repeatedly for the same charge.
And the leadership is onto them as they’ve replaced the names with cryptic numbers to throw off third-party invaders, which the anti-corruption activists find funny, to the point where they’ve mocked the leadership as droids from Star Wars.
Even the New Yorker reported on the news of the arrest of Governor Belykh, noting the way that the organization investigating him provide a first-person account of his detainment in a snarky tone, which is similar to the delivery of pro-Putin supporters when they go after the opposition; one only needs to refer to the back and forth in social media between Putin supporters and those siding with the Ukraine.
Before he was appointed by President Dmitry Medvedev to rule one of Russia’s eighty-three regions, Belykh headed a political party that had been co-founded by Boris Nemtsov, the anti-Putin politician who was assassinated last year.
The Inquisitr reported on the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, and also talks about his opposition of the Kremlin; he was killed near the Kremlin in broad daylight last year. The article refers to an op-ed he wrote before he died, where he said that he expected Putin to assassinate him.
As was the case with Alexey when he was arrested or denied party wins, many in the Russian news circles feel that Nikita Belykh’s arrest was a setup in order for the success of a United Russia vote this year.
[Alexei Nikolsky/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP]
