Well then, the campaign to expose foreign agent Bastrykin is developing faster than anyone might have expected. Czech authorities have confirmed the authenticity of the documents published yesterday, as well as the fact that our colonel general held a residence permit in their country:
A permit for long-term stay is equivalent to a Russian residence permit, a staff member at the Czech Embassy in Russia explained to Gazeta.Ru. A residence permit gives a person the right to remain in the country for the entire period of the document’s validity while engaging in the type of activity declared when obtaining it, the diplomat said. http://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2012/07/26_a_4694797.shtml Czech Republic confirms Bastrykin held a residence permit The Czech Interior Ministry has confirmed that Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, held a residence permit in the country. The Financial Times reports this. The document was valid from February 2007 to February 2009. The reason for granting the residence permit was that Bastrykin was managing the Czech company Law Bohemia. At the same time, Czech police pointed to the illegality of Bastrykin’s actions, noting that he failed to notify the relevant authorities in a timely manner about the sale of his stake in the company, local outlet Rozhlas уточняет. A police spokeswoman for foreign nationals’ affairs, Katerina Rendlova, made the statement. Under the law, the document should have been canceled immediately after Bastrykin sold his stake in Law Bohemia. According to Rendlova, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee illegally held a Czech residence permit for about six months. http://lenta.ru/news/2012/07/27/czech/ Here is the original FT article (available if you have a subscription). We now await statements from yesterday’s Kremlin and pro-Kremlin defenders of Agent B.:
- the Czech Foreign Ministry simply doesn’t understand what counts as a residence permit in the Czech Republic and what counts as a visa; - the Czech Embassy’s representatives know Czech too poorly to translate the phrase dlouhodobému pobytu correctly; - the Czech Interior Ministry kidnapped General Bastrykin, forcibly issued him a residence permit, and compelled him to buy property. They tortured him with beer. Yesterday, by the way, Agent B. became a star of the Czech media:
The Russian opposition accuses investigations chief Bastrykin of being a foreign agent. Because of his long-term stay in the Czech Republic He’s a Czech spy, opposition figure accuses Russian general Head of Russian investigators has a problem: he is allegedly a Czech spy Opposition blogger labels head of the “Russian FBI” a Czech agent and many others Russia’s state media, like its state officials, are maintaining a deathly silence. The only comment so far—and a very funny one at that—came from Putin’s press secretary: The Kremlin considers reports that Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, has a residence permit in the Czech Republic to be “Alexei Navalny’s self-promotion,” RBC Daily reports. Dmitry Peskov noted that “it is very difficult to judge the reliability of information based on blogs.” “I wouldn’t rule out that he wrote about it on his blog but forgot to send an appeal to Vladimir Putin,” the presidential press secretary said. He also said that he “does not read A. Navalny’s blog and does not think it is necessary.” http://top.rbc.ru/politics/26/07/2012/661876.shtml Let me inform both Dmitry Peskov and his boss: we did not forget to send you an official letter, so please do not forget to reply. You are, of course, under no obligation to read my cozy little journal, but I assume you do read the Financial Times, Vedomosti, and statements by official representatives of foreign states concerning our officials. An interesting situation. The Czech Interior Ministry has already responded, while our Investigative Committee and Putin remain silent. I’m not sure this can be considered an official response from the Investigative Committee, though who knows? Foreign journalists working in Russia are asking a very fair question: what would happen in the United States if it turned out that the FBI director owned property and held a residence permit in Nicaragua? How many minutes would he remain in office after that?
Let them stay silent. Our most important task right now is to make sure that the unanswered questions are being asked by broad masses of ordinary people. Many thanks to everyone helping us with the “Agent Bastrykin” information campaign. Our printable leaflet on the subject has already been downloaded 11,219 times: http://foreignagent.mashina.org/ Let grandmothers who will never hear about the general’s Czech real estate on Channel One learn about it from a notice in the elevator or on the building entrance. We need to make sure that every time this foreign agent in gold epaulettes appears on TV, millions of people remember: “Oh, that’s the one with the Czech residence permit.” We’ll do it. Make your contribution: http://foreignagent.mashina.org/ Update: as everyone knows, Yandex finds everything