This “partnership” certainly pushed the editor -in -chief of Baza, Glev Trifonov, to feel safe. However, last Tuesday, the police came to arrest him in force before searching for his writing. In the afternoon, Trifonov passed a court which had nothing to do with the secret of the sources. The editor -in -chief was accused of having paid police to obtain information on the Belgorod Ukraine border region. He will be imprisoned until September pending his judgment. The corrupt agents were found and presented to a judge.
War in Ukraine: Kremlin uses “discreet but destabilizing” tactics to stifle any dissent
Publicly assumed censorship
In recent weeks, the repression of the regime against the press has started to reach journalists favorable to power. On June 5, it was the drafting of the Ekaterinburg regional media “Ura.ru” which had been violently searched for the same reason.
The Kremlin assumes this de facto martial state: “Russia is going through an unprecedented period of war censorship for our country, which is explained by the fact that war also takes place in information space“Said Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitri Peskov on July 11.
The suicide of the Roman Minister Starovoït shakes the Russian elites: “There is a significant nervousness and a great suspicion …”
Tuesday, it is also control of the Russian Internet that found itself at the heart of the discussions. The deputies voted for a law prohibiting the use of VPN, a system to bypass the blockages of sites. These VPNs have been partially blocked for several years but their use has become more democratic in the face of the importance of an application like Instagram for youth and the small Russian businesses which make themselves known. From now on, the simple search for “extremists” terms, which include the websites of the media of journalists in exile and the consultation of these sites can give rise to a fine.
The military, the politicians, and then?
In parallel, the security services are continuing their fight against corruption in order to redirect all the country’s resources towards war. On Tuesday, the police invested the prestigious Mikhaïlovski theater in Saint Petersburg. The agents arrested the artistic director there and then they searched the establishment. Man is accused of having drawn abundantly in a public budget of 2 billion rubles originally allocated to the reconstruction of the scene of a Moscow theater.
The hunt for thieves now affects all circles but primarily targets the military and political domains. This strategy had been symbolically formalized by the appointment of Andreï Beloousov to the post of Minister of Defense in May 2024, a civilian with an economist profile. Many soldiers were arrested during the past year in corruption cases. Investigators then attacked politicians of all levels. Last January, the newspaper “Novaïa Gazeta” had recorded that between 2022 and 2025, a tenth of civil servants in the Moscow region had been the subject of criminal prosecution in corruption cases.
In Russia, faced with Putin’s anger, a purge is organized at low noise
Humiliation in front of the cameras
The subject is as sensitive as it is essential for the Vladimir Putin regime. On the one hand, it makes it possible to signify to all the links in the chain that the massive corruption patterns no longer have their place in a Russia based on its war economy. On the other, he attacks the balance of his system, his elite precisely faithful because it was authorized to enrich herself legally and illegally.
The death by suicide of Roman Starovoït, former Minister of Transport and Governor of the Koursk region on July 7, highlighted this repression of purge. Other former governors are also being expelled from the Putinian caste. The ex-target of the Tambov region, MAKSIM EGOROV was arrested this Thursday. He is also accused of having benefited from “large -scale corruption schemes” under the terms of Russian justice.
The suicide of the Roman Minister Starovoït shakes the Russian elites: “There is a significant nervousness and a great suspicion …”
In the same type of business as that which targeted the Minister of Transport, several senior officials have been arrested in recent weeks, accused of having stolen money intended for the protection of Russian borders: Nikolai Simonenko, former vice-governor of the British region, his counterpart in the Belgorod Rustem Zainullin region and Alexei Smirnov, predecessor The Koursk region. Everyone may pay the expensive price of a humiliation in front of the country’s cameras to show the example. They are accused, by their flights, of having had an effect on the course of the war, in favor of the enemy.
