In Moscow's Shadows 253: The Fall Of Antikvar

A 74-year-old port magnate known in the underworld as Antikvar is arrested by an FSB team, hauled into Moscow’s Basmanny Court, and suddenly the ghosts of St Petersburg’s wild 1990s feel very alive. Ilya Traber's career took him from from antiques monopolies to oil terminals, in the murky interface between “authoritative business” and outright organised crime. And much of it thanks to his relationship with Putin in and since the 1990s.

Traber's name has run through the bloody annals of 'Banditsky Peterbug,' so why act now? My theory: he overstepped the bounds of the new rules, at a time when serious figures within the FSB, including First Deputy Director Korolev, had reason to go after him.

But this would have come to nothing had Traber's old partner Putin not given the green light. When the decision is made at the top, even yesterday’s “untouchables” can become expendable.

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Transcript

The Wild Nineties Never Die

MG 0:00

The high profile arrest of an alleged criminal businessman in St. Petersburg, Bianditsky Peterburg, is a useful reminder that the sins of the wild nineties can't be forgotten until everyone who remembers them is behind bums or in the ground. This podcast of varying length, frequency, and format, yet always reassuringly low production values, is supported by generous and perspicacious patrons like you, and also by the Crisis Exercise software company Conductor. Okay, so I'm recording this and we'll be releasing this a day earlier than usual on Saturday the 20th of June, in part because, quite frankly, this is a story that excites me to my dark soul with its particular problematic interest in Russia's gangsters, and also because there's a lot of nonsense being talked about this case, and it'd be nice to put some of the of the myths to bed.

Performative Raids As A Kremlin Message

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But anyway, let me just start with a parallel. Back in 2007, Vladimir Kumarin, also known as Vladimir Barsukov, was relaxing in his mansion in St. Petersburg when 300 heavily armed police special forces, backed by armoured personnel carriers with helicopters above, stormed it. He was quickly whisked away to Moscow, not least to ensure that he couldn't draw on his own connections in St. Petersburg to somehow get out or whatever. Even the police special officers who had been brought in came from outside St. Petersburg. And then Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika accused him of banditry, of organizing a gang, and of being behind the attempted murder the year before of Sergei Vasiliev, who was a rival in the oil business. Two men with assault rifles had raked Vasiliev's car, wounding him and killing one of his bodyguards, and eventually he was sentenced to twenty four years for these crimes. But of course, these weren't really the crimes that had actually got him arrested, particularly not in such a high, high profile manner, thankfully a thoroughly performative manner. They didn't need all these special forces and armoured personnel carriers or whatever. They just wanted to make a point. Kumarin's real crimes were to have been a little bit too visible, a little bit too free with tales of the 1990s when his Tumbovskaya gang was making money hand over fist in St. Petersburg, not least thanks to deals which had been arranged with the deputy mayor, one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. And then also more immediately, Kumarin refused to back down from a business deal in favour of a politician close to Putin. And what we've seen has been so part of that social contract, shall we say, that Putin had established with organized crime, from when, right at the beginning, he came to power as president in 1999-2000, was this. You don't do anything which looks like a challenge to the state, and by state we also mean Putin himself. Nothing that's going to embarrass us, so you know we're not talking about obviously being a little bit too free with information from the dirty deals of the nineties, but also not the kind of car bombings and drive-by shootings which made it look as if the state wasn't in control of the streets. Well, refrain from that, and yes, of course, the cops are still going to try and catch you, but we won't treat you as a security issue, and with all the additional priority and resources that that intends. However, from time to time people overstepped these understood boundaries, or just simply the Kremlin decided it was time just to give people a reminder of whose was the biggest gang in town. So we would tend to have these highly performative arrests. One can also draw a parallel with in 2013 the arrest of Said Amirov, former mayor of Machkala, the capital of Dagestan, and very much the local Kingpin. Actually, he was known as Bloody Roosevelt because of his reliance on a wheelchair after a 1993 assassination attempt left him paralyzed, a bullet in his spine, but also the amount of deaths that seem strangely to have happened to his enemies. And today Zay Damirov is still serving out his life sentence at the notorious Black Dolphin, maximum security penal colony in Orinburg region. Black Dolphin really is a very, very serious establishment. There's actually some quite good documentaries out there which you'll find on YouTube if you're interested. So, you know, every now and then it's necessary to bring people to heel, either just simply to remind organized crime that the state gets to define the limits of acceptable behaviour, which is, it has to be said, under pressure at the moment because of a certain amount of turmoil and turbulence within the underworld, or else because individuals are seen to become a little bit too problematic.

Traber Arrested In Moscow Spotlight

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Now the reason I'm raising these examples is that on the 17th of June, an FSB team, again heavily armed, going in mob-handed, arrested Ilya Traber, who is more widely known within especially the underworld, as Antikvar, the antiques dealer, the antiquarian. But he had long since outgrown any antique dealery. He's now a fabulously wealthy owner of oil ports in Usluga and Primorsk, as well as the Leningrad Regional Electric Grid Company and lots and lots of other enterprises, businesses, real estate, and whatever else. But still, for now, his property essentially is limited to a cell, in that Moscow's Basmiani Court has remanded him in pretrial detention for two months while a case is being prepared. Now look, if Kumarin was St. Petersburg's Vito Corleone, you know, old Don Corleone, the 74-year-old Traber is more like his son Michael, the mobster who's interested less in codes, traditions, and respect, and more in business. And look, this is a big deal for a whole variety of reasons, so bear with me as I again indulge my unhealthy passions with these people. Even according to Peskov, Putin's press spokesman, Putin and Traber have known each other since 1995. Trabir was indeed once quite socially close to Putin, though not in the past decade or so. Not one of his true friends, but the sort of person who certainly got invited to his parties. And Traber was also associated with Nikolai Shomalov, co-owner of Rosya Bank, and very much a close Putin competent. And Nikolai is the father of Kirill Shomalov, who was formerly married to Putin's daughter, Katarina Tikonova. So you can already begin to get a sense of just how intricate, interconnected, and almost incestuous the ties were within Vanditsky Peterburg. Putin and Traba were primarily connected through business, and not the most savory

How Antikvar Built His Empire

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variety. Because they they really, I mean, frankly, Trabe made his first solid stakes during Putin's tenure as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. There is a claim that Traber actually is a man who introduced Putin to future mayor Subchak. That's not the case actually. Subchak was one of Putin's law professors at Leningrad State University, so they they had a previous history. Now Traber had been a submariner, not a tremendously successful one, but a sub but a submarine officer. Then through the 80s he was a bartender. In 1989, though, taking advantage of the economic liberalisation under Gorbachev, he established himself as an antiques dealer. And not just any antiques dealer. He was smart. What he did was he established a joint venture with the city that essentially gave him a monopoly on the legal antiques trade in Leningrad. Remember, this was still Leningrad. Because he realized that a desperate city administration needed money, it was also pretty clueless about the emerging market economy. And that made it a very useful partner because it also had power, precisely the power to grant monopolies and so forth. And in this particular business, Traber actually was a majority shareholder. So he had all the weight of City Hall behind him, but he still controlled the business. Now this predated Putin, but it did mean that Traber was already a known quantity in City Hall, because he then also used that as a basis to set up a whole bunch of new businesses, again, usually with a city having a minority stake. Now, Putin very quickly became not just Deputy Mayor, but chair of the Committee for External Relations of the Mayor's Office, which meant that his job was to essentially broker deals and handle all the liaison with whoever needed to be liaised with. Whether this meant Tombovskaya, it's worth remembering that Kumarin's nickname at the time was the night governor. The idea was that the legitimate authorities may be in control by day, but by night, I don't know. By night St. Petersburg is Tombovskaya's. So it ranged from him through to people like Traber, who were much more on the borderline between gangsterdom and the emerging market economy, and well, even frankly, foreign companies. This meant that Putin got to know Traber better and steered business his way, but not for free. Now, one of the key things that definitely shaped Traber's emerging career as a magnate was in the 1990s he took on a big stake of the St. Petersburg oil terminal. And in some ways he was acting as the sort of the accountant and the front for Tambovskaya, but in part it was very much also on his own account. And this was a process that was, shall I say, midwifed by Putin, and accompanied by a lot of blood. I mean, the trail of murders included the former port captain, his head of security, and so forth. Then in 1995, Thrabier got a contract for refueling at St. Petersburg's Pulkova airport. Putin allegedly wanted 15% of the profits, but in the end they settled for him getting 4%. But again, that gives you a sense of how these deals worked. He makes sure that you get the deal, a deal that you're going to make a lot of money off, and in return he expects a cut. And of course, he also looks after his friends. The next year, 1996, Putin's deputy at the Committee for External Relations, Alexei Miller, who is now CEO of Gazprom, in other words, one of the richest and most powerful economic figures within the Putin system. Anyway, Miller, who worked for Putin at this time, was appointed director for development and investments at the Port of St. Petersburg. So hands are washing each other left, right, and centre. But of course, anyone who gets in the way, well, Traber has a no-nonsense approach to non-competition clauses. In 1997 he is suspected, very frankly, seriously suspected, of being behind the assassination of Mikhail Manevich, Deputy Governor of St. Petersburg, with the portfolio, tellingly enough, of city property management. Now Manevich was very much on the liberal reformer side of politics at the time, and quite possibly wasn't in in tune, shall we say, with with the Putin approach to handling city property. Now, Travo apparently moved to Europe in the late 1990s. It's hard to know exactly when, and he was active in Spain, in Switzerland, and in Monaco, building up a network of companies that frankly looked very much like money laundering fronts for Tombowska, for himself, and probably for anyone else who wanted to take advantage of them. However, in due course he came to the attention of the authorities, particularly in Spain. In 2016, he flees back to Russia when charges were brought against him there, although he was then cleared of all charges in 2018. For me, slightly strange outcome, but there you go. So Taraba is once again based in Russia, and he's involved in a whole range of activities, particularly relating to the oil industry and oil exports, and he owned just under a third of a project to build a new deep water Baltic port in Primorsk. Now you might wonder how is this being built? I mean, a massive oil port is a huge investment. Well, in 2021, the CEO of one of Trabir's companies wrote directly to Putin, requesting 220 billion rubles in financing it. Putin scribbled considerate on the letter and forward it to Andrei Kostin, chair of Vneshikonombank. And guess what? Surprisingly enough, Kostin did consider it, and the 220 billion rubles were forthcoming. So we have this Pramorsk port being built. But then of course, in 2022, we have the special military operation and recognizing the new needs of the time. Indeed, Traber actually chairs its board of trustees, but in reality there is a strong suspicion that actually only a fraction of the monies that are meant to go into the fund actually do. The rest is in effect laundered through the fund. A lot of it is being sent abroad, it seems. All of this being said, all of this relationship with all kinds of dodgy deals, international transactions of questionable merit, a whole morgue's worth of corpses strewing his economic career, there's never been a single legal case against Traber in Russia. Now, is he actually the most honest man in St. Petersburg or the cleverest? Or the best connected. Now, writing about this case, Moskowski Kam Samolitz wrote The era of authoritative business in other words, business carried out by authoritiety authorities, which is the general term for the sort of the new generation commercially minded criminal kingpins compared to the Voriva Zakonya of the old order. Anyway, the new era of authoritative business in St. Petersburg has ended. Has it really? I mean, in a way, what we are seeing is obviously an onslaught against the old world of Banditsky Peterburg, which of course now has become Banditsky pensioner Peterburg, really, because that's the sort of generation of criminals who are being taken down. Why? Why now? And why was Traber's arrest personally supervised by the first deputy head of the FSB, Sergei Karalyov? I've set the scene up. Now, after the break, let's consider the wider implications of this tale and why quite I am so excited by it.

Sponsor Break And Patron Updates

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Just the usual mid-episode reminder that you're listening to the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Its corporate partner and sponsor is Conductor, which provides software for crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, and civil affairs. But you can also support the podcast yourself by going to patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows. And remember that patrons, as well as knowing that they're supporting this peerless source on all things Russian, get a variety of additional perks depending on their tier, including articles I've written, the most weekly Gavarit Moscovar press briefing, and other bonus content like the Chronicles of a Different Russia alternative histories. And you can also follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or on Facebook, MarkGaleotti on Russia. Now back to the episode. Before I move on to the fun stuff, just a quick note for patrons, paying patrons, there will be no Gavarit Muskva this week because I'm travelling. There will be something else arriving in your inboxes on Wednesday morning, though. And secondly, the first episode will soon drop of what should be a monthly video series called Bratva, Brotherhood, which I'll be hosting for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime. The first episode is actually about how another case illustrates what's going on within the wider Russian underworld and the death of the old uh Vorovsko Ymir, the old thieves world. Anyway, I I will be sort of announcing that when it actually comes out, but it will be dropping soon. And I I think it's quite fun.

The Port Money Trail

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So why now? Well, the first point is it could well be about ports. Travera's case is at least in part down to investigations that have been carried out by Directorate T of the FSB's counterintelligence service. Its remit is a security of transport infrastructure, so Russian railways, aeroflot, and yes indeed ports. And from 2022 until this year, its deputy head had been Major General Sergei Gimyanishnikov. Now apparently he had made a particular pet project, shall we say, of the embezzlement from the Primorsk project, from which Traber, and in some ways doing what was is the norm of the times, certainly not in war. But anyway, Traber had been reportedly siphoning off huge sums from this project. And remember, this is a project that was the one backed by a loan from the Neshekonom Bank when Putin intervened. The sum of two billion rubles disappearing, so that's more than 20 million pounds, for example, has been mentioned. This clearly is especially problematic when you're in a time when courtesy of Ukrainian drones, not least hitting Thraber's own port at Usluga, but nonetheless Russia needs its export ports. And this whole scandal had indeed come to the attention of Andrei Nikitin, the Minister of Transport. What happened in March? Well, Demyanishnikov moved to a new post, head of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region. And then in June, Putin coincidentally held separate face-to-face meetings with Nikitin to discuss the situation with the ports of the Leningrad region, including Primorsk, and Igor Rudenya, the newly appointed plenipotentiary presidential envoy to the Northwestern Federal District, who seems to have had his own beefs with Traber. So this could well be about ports. It could well be about an ambitious FSB officer with an axe to grind and a career to make that knows that a very high profile scalp like Trabers could be the making, or if you get it wrong, the breaking, of a career. But would that have been enough to get Traber arrested, and particularly arrested in such a visible way? It would need Putin's okay. And even if the Primorsk port does seem to be a strategic necessity, Traber could simply have been quietly reprimanded, he could have been required to return the money, he could have had his access to the port removed by nationalization or whatever else, there are other ways of doing it. So although I think this is an interesting case, and I'm sure Dimianishnikov's investigation and the fact that this was happening from an oil export port is significant, I don't think it's the whole story. So we need to get even deeper into the rabbit hole. And here, look, I imagine that people have a suspicion that, like in the films and TV programs, I have some great big huge board in my room with photos and printouts all connected by different coloured strings, and well, let me be honest, if every wall were not covered in bookcases, by God, yes, I would have such a board. But yes, we we have to get into somewhat conspiratorial territory. The other, and certainly the one that generally is being sort of alluded to publicly, pretext for this arrest is the case of Petrov.

The Petrov Sniper Killing Theory

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Now, local deputy and businessman Alexander Petrov was pretty much boss of Viborg, a town to the northwest of St. Petersburg, which included the Viborg Shipyard and the Viborg Fuel Company. Very much within, I would suggest, the orbit, you say of St. Petersburg. Now the media dubbed Petrov the Master of Viborg because of his influence in the city, and in fact, in 2016, Petrov asked journalists to stop calling him that. And so as a result, journalists began calling him hashtag not the master of Viborg, which I did rather like. But anyway, Petrov was in October 2020 leaving the bathhouse on his country estate when he was gunned down by a sniper. Two bullets at long range, apparently a highly professional job. Now, given all the circumstances surrounding his death, investigative committee head. Alexander Bastrikin decided to take personal control of the criminal case. Now, on one level, this is not at all surprising because Bastrikin likes to position himself at the front of any kind of highly media friendly story. But, well, it's worth noting that Petrov may also have played a role in getting Bastrikin his job. I'll come on to it a little bit more in a moment, so there could have been a little bit more to it than that. Anyway, the word seems to be that it was Trabyr who ordered this contract killing. Petrov had once been Traber's right-hand man. I mean they met back in the 1990s when they were operating together at the Drushba Hotel, where they both later owned shares in the local casino. It's worth noting, one of the businesses that Putin oversaw was, of course, the gambling industry, the legal gambling industry within St. Petersburg. You know, the connections continue to be made. And these days, one of his key roles, other than just simply making money on his own account, was in managing smuggling through Viborg port for Traber. The thing is, Petrov had apparently started selling off his assets. He was planning to leave the country to live with his son, Vitali, who is the first Russian Formula One driver. Apparently, I don't know much about Formula One, apparently nicknamed the Viborg Rocket. As so often happens when cashing out, that's obviously often one of the dangerous points in these kind of criminal ventures, because clearly a lot of the assets in question are not exactly on the book, and ownership can be contested. Anyway, he and Traber fell out over the apportionment of the proceeds. Now, this is an entirely possible reason for why Traber, who is not a man to even now, in now that he's 74 years old, even now not to be crossed, could have gone after Petrov. Again, though, I'm not sure if it is enough to have led to this arrest. It could well be the pretext for going after Traber, you know, the Sledkom is shocked, shocked to discover that murder has taken place in this establishment. But no, given that Putin would have had to green light, I think we need to look something else, something different, something personal, something political.

Compromat Rumours And Why They Fail

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So is it this is the third possible explanation, about compromat, about compromising material. The Vietchika Ogpu social media site, which specializes in rather lurid claims about sort of criminal wrongdoings among the Russian elite, and it has to be said has let's call it a very variable level of accuracy. Anyway, they have said that these days Traber has effectively been living in Europe and even married a Latvian fifty-two years younger than him. He came to St. Petersburg, though, for meetings in the margins of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which provided the FSB an opportunity to grab him because he knows too much about Putin's murky past. And it says that allowing such a person to remain in Europe is too dangerous. Well, maybe. However, I'm not convinced that Traber necessarily was living in Europe most of the time. It's worth noting, after all, he was on Interpol's wanted list until the end of last year. If anyone out there knows better, please do tell me. There's also very little reason to s to believe that Traber would, after a lifetime of discretion, be willing to spill any such spicy beans, not least, as he must have known what would happen, not just to his assets inside Russia, but to him. Once again, this is not the first time I've felt this about Vichika Ogpu. It's offered us a fun, but ultimately, I think, implausible story. So, next story that's during the rounds that again might have some seeds of truth in it, but ultimately I think is problematic, is of a rivalry with some senior FSB people. So there's the claim that Traber was involved in a bitter dispute with Anatoly Yablonsky, who is a shadowy businessman with all kinds of interests, from booze to telecoms. But he in turn, this argument goes, is a client of FSB Deputy Director Evgeny Lovirev. Now this is very widely claimed. You see it being picked up all over the place. There's a tiny problem. Lovvirev is not a deputy director of the FSB, or rather he isn't anymore, having retired from the FSB in 2004. In other words, 22 years ago. So I don't exactly see him as any great mover and shaker. For years his main role has been as president of the Dynamo Moscow Women's Volleyball Club. And I don't think there's too much that you can do from that particular basis.

FSB Patronage Wars And Karalyov

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But there is actually a much more interesting potential FSB angle, and this is when we get to Karalyov. The smart money, I think, is that Yablonsky's original FSB patron back in the days was not Lavirev, but Colonel General Viktor Varonin, who until 2016 was the head of the FSB's Economic Security Service, that's the SEB, its Department K. And who was incidentally, this is indeed just tangential, but one of the prime movers in the original case against Bill Browder that led to the arrest and death of his tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky. Anyway, Varonin, he's old news these days. His place as Yablonsky's Krisha, it's roof his protector, was taken first by Ivan Tkachev, who was once head of the Sixth Directorate of the Internal Security Service. Yeah, you know, I know this is where exactly you need to have a board with notations and uh all sorts of strings. But anyway, Tkachev was head of the particular Department of the Internal Security Service of the FSB. So in other words, the the sort of spook watchers. And this was the unit that became known as Setchin Spetsnaz, because Igor Sechin, the old long-term bagman of Putin's, who is now head of Rosneft, essentially had compromised and corrupted it and was using it as his own personal hit squad. Now, Tkachev would then go on to take Varonin's role as head of director of Department K of the SEB, and has since become head of DVKR, military counterintelligence. But the point is that Tkachev's time in SEB coincided with it being headed by none other than Sergei Karalyov, who is now first deputy head of the FSB. Karalyov also became one of Yablonsky's patrons. Indeed, it was Thachev and Karalyov who allegedly got Yablonsky a very lucrative role as head of the Union of Cognac producers. I know it sounds ridiculous, but these things are big money spinners. And in this rather more credible scenario, Trabber was brought down by his rivalry with Yablonsky. And indeed, that might help explain why Karalyov handled this personally. He was asserting his own authority and asserting that he looks after not only his own interests but also his clients. But there is an additional twist to that. Karalyov for years has been the pretty much undisputed heir to the FSB throne, waiting for the ailing director, Alexander Bortnikov, to die, retire, or otherwise get the hell out of his way. Putin, though, has been reluctant. He hates Chern within the security apparatus. He knows Bortnikov, he trusts Bortnikov. Karolyov is a little bit more of an unknown quantity, so from his point of view, he wants to keep Bortnikov in place as long as possible, even if Bortnikov can't really do the job these days. And also Karolov has enemies. It will be a divisive appointment, even though he is the obvious candidate to succeed. Doesn't mean he will, but nonetheless, he is the obvious candidate to succeed. Now, Bortnikov is 74, he's finding it increasingly difficult to do the job, so maybe it is getting closer to the time of a transition. And so this may be Karalyov actually showing his loyalty, acting as Putin's plumber, sealing off the risk of leaks, and maybe also flexing his muscles. Traber could conceivably be an embarrassment or a risk to the boss, so why didn't we deal with him? It's worth remembering that back when he headed the SEB, Karolyov's reputation was, in the words of National Anti-Corruption Committee member Kirill Kabanov, a cleaner. In other words, the sort of person who could clean up problems for you, whether it was in the interest of the Kremlin or some other patron or customer. And this one final element which supports the idea that Karolyov is clearing house ahead of a promotion or because his rivals are desperately looking for dirt on him. At the same time as Traber was being arrested, investigators also searched the home of Gennady Petrov. No relation to the Petrov who was murdered, by the way, despite the shared surname. Anyway, investigation in connection with the same case. Gennady Petrov is another one of the Autoriteti, the crime business, criminal businessmen, and another one of the associates of Tombovskaya. And Petrov is particularly infamous for his activities in Spain. He was very, very closely investigated during the Spanish Operation Troika. And Petrov, in fact, fled Spain for Russia on bail in 2010 and refused to return. So he's a wanted man there. As a result of this investigation, a bunch of phone transcripts, trapped phone conversations, were released. And in them, Petrov and his associates seem to be claiming that they use their influence to help secure Alexander Bastrikin's promotion to head the investigatory committee, who, ironically enough, is now the man investigating the guy who may have got him his job. No clash of interests there. But another figure mentioned in the transcripts, under the pseudonyms Boltainoga or Gulyainoga, seems very likely to have been Karalyov, who clearly had a close relationship with Petrov. I mean at one point even promises to attend Petrov's birthday party, and certainly is perfectly happy to work with Tambov, to do them favours in return for payments. So let me tie all these various strings together and see if I can make some halfway substantial knot with them.

Putin’s Thumbs Down And The Lesson

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Point one, Trabert is an old business partner of Putin's. He knows probably quite literally where the bodies are buried. Secondly, in a time of war when the rules of what is acceptable criminality, shall we say, have indeed changed. Traber is embezzling from a strategic project that Putin had put his own authority behind, and yet is also needed by the state. And it's worth noting after all that we've had a lot of arrests of people, for example, involved in embezzling from border defences along the Ukrainian border and that kind of thing. This is not on. Three, Trabere is not sitting on his laurels. He's still picking fights and killing people. He's still a potentially destabilizing force, and if there's one thing Putin doesn't want at the moment, it's instability. Four, we have a local FSB boss who already has Traber in his sights, and who knows that he could get quite a career boost if he can really get some serious scalp. Five, we have an FSB director in waiting who needs to show that he will defend his clients, even against one such as Traber, who wants to show that he can reach out and get someone who is assumed to be under Putin's protection, but also has to demonstrate his loyalty to the Kremlin. There is still one piece missing. Now Traber is an interesting person. Apparently he knew that the raid was coming, and when the FSB team arrived at his country house, two lawyers were already waiting at the door showing their IDs. And according to one account, Traber then later made a call, or before being taken away, from his old push button telephone, and he said, It's over. The decision on me has been made. I know I will die in prison, take care of the family. The decision has been made, I mean that's the missing piece. There's only one man who could make that decision and make it final. There is no court of appeal from Putin's thumbs down. Now, Traber, much like Yevgeny Prigoshin, for example, was never quite in Putin's real friend circle, though he certainly got closer to it than Putin's chef ever did. If you're not in that charmed small circle, though, then you're expendable. And one of the reasons why this might actually prove of much wider significance is that that is a lesson that everyone has now been reminded of. Someday that may well come back to bite Putin. That lack of loyalty to any but the smallest handful of, let's be honest, embezzlers. This is no country for old men, if the old man in question has dirt on the boss or just simply becomes inconvenient. Traber is learning that lesson. Well, that's the end of another episode of the In Moscow Shadows podcast. Just as a reminder, beyond this, you can follow my blog, also called In Moscow Shadows. You can follow me on Twitter at Mark Galliotti or Facebook, Mark Galliotti on Russia. This podcast is made possible by generous and enlightened patrons, and you too can be one. Just go along to my Patreon page, that's patreon.com slash in Moscow Shadows, and decide which tier you want to join, getting access to exclusive materials and other perks. However, whether or not you contribute, thank you very much indeed for listening. Until next time, keep well.