Honestly, the situation surrounding Abyzov really gets to us at ACF.
Not because he was arrested—of course not. What really infuriates us is that in March 2019, the whole country is being fed this line: “Operatives discovered: Abyzov was stealing money in Siberia and moving it abroad.”
Seriously? The shocking exposé of 2019?
And these “operatives” never saw our investigation from March 16, 2017?
We released it then specifically ahead of a rally in Novosibirsk, when the whole city was pushing back against a steep increase in housing and utilities rates imposed by United Russia, and enthusiastically supported, by the way, by Novosibirsk’s Communist Party mayor, Lokot.
Abyzov was the direct beneficiary of that increase—absolutely everyone knew it.
After a series of rallies, whose main organizer was our colleague Sergei Boyko, it was possible to beat back Abyzov. But the fact is that these were mafia-style actions involving the entire power structure: the presidential envoy, the governor, United Russia, the Communist mayor, the local sellout newspapers, and so on.
Abyzov was running the whole thing while sitting in a minister’s chair. And now—would you look at that—“operatives discovered” it.
We couldn’t resist going back to visit that estate in Italy now, two years later. Last time it was under renovation, after all, so we had to find out: was our minister able to finish it after the whole country learned about his schemes, or maybe not?
