How does the human rights business of former car fraudster Vladimir Osechkin, who makes money from political refugees from Russia, work?

In addition to Medvedev and Chibrin, Osechkin publicly named five names of repentant military and security officials whom, according to him, he helped leave Russia. He told the Project that there were more evacuations (“at least ten and no more than a hundred”), but refused to disclose the exact number or details. Osechkin eventually accused at least three of the five deported of war crimes or working for the FSB, and about Chibrin he simply wrote to Project: “He’s gone off the rails.” Osechkin refused to answer the question of how he checks security forces who approach him for evacuation. However, during the conversation in Biarritz, he used the word “fact-checking” at least a dozen times.

Which military and security officials have Osechkin “evacuated” since the beginning of the war?

Alexander Lisenkov

France

Osechkin introduced Dmitrieva as a doctor who served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the FSB. He offered to help the girl obtain asylum in France, an acquaintance of Dmitrieva told the Project, but after her arrival a conflict arose between them. Osechkin, in a conversation with Project, suggested that the purpose of Dmitrieva’s visit was to discredit Gulagu.net.

In addition to news about evacuations, Osechkin constantly becomes a source of absurd sensations. For example, American Newsweek with reference to Osechkin’s source “in the FSB,” he wrote that in the summer of 2021 Russia was going to attack Japan. To be convincing, the Newsweek article said that the same Hristo Grozev allegedly showed Osechkin’s “source letter” to his interlocutors in the FSB, and they understood from the manner of the letter that the author was their colleague. Grozev told the Project that Newsweek had not even contacted him. He did show one of the letters from Osechkin’s “source” to his contacts, but it was a completely different letter. Osechkin claims that he did not mention Grozev in his conversation with Newsweek. Newsweek journalist Isabelle van Brugen told The Project that she really did not speak with Grozev, but simply quoted his tweet about another letter from the same “source.”

In a different interview the human rights activist, citing a “source in the FSO,” said that Evgeny Prigozhin prepared human flesh for Putin. Next time Osechkin quoted insiders from an anonymous person – first that Russia was going to use nuclear weapons that same night, and then he even read out a popular meme on the Internet about “the father of an acquaintance from the FSB.” The full meme, ironic at those who like to spread panic messages, reads like this: “A friend’s father works in the FSB. Today I was urgently called to a meeting, returned late and did not explain anything. He just told me to pack my things and run to the store for groceries for two weeks. Now we’re going somewhere far out of town.” Later It revealed, that another Internet figure, Vladislav Pozdnyakov from the misogynistic movement “Male State,” laughed at the human rights activist and his “fact-checking.” Osechkin told the Project that he did not have the opportunity to verify this information, but he considered it important to make it public.

Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and thanks to high-profile “sensations,” Gulagu.net has grown significantly in audience. Since January 2022, the audience of the Youtube and Telegram channels “Gulagu.net” has more than doubled – from 325 thousand subscribers in January 2022 to 880 thousand in August 2023 on Youtube, and from 85 thousand subscribers in February 2023 to almost 180 thousand in August 2023 on Telegram.

The apotheosis of “fact-checking” was Osechkin’s interview with two Russians who introduced themselves as Wagnerites from among former prisoners. Their service in PMCs confirmed Evgeny Prigozhin. Journalists from “Verstka” proved, that one of them should still be in the colony – that is, he was probably pardoned. Alexey Savichev and Azamat Uldarov talked with Osechkin on Skype, while in Russia – the more sensational their confessions sounded: they personally killed Ukrainian children, threw grenades into a pit with wounded Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. The revelations of Osechkin’s interlocutors were replicated Ukrainian and separate world media, but no confirmation of what was said has appeared since then. Instead, it turned out that at least one of the “sources” – homeless Alexey Savichev – received money from Osechkin for the conversation, which he needed “just to eat, to survive.” Osechkin admittedthat his volunteer transferred 10 thousand rubles to Savichev, but says that this was not a condition of the interview. In past Gulagu.net wrote directlythat pays its informants. Savichev complainedthat no one tried to ensure his safety, and soon – like Uldarov – he disappeared from view. Both stopped answering calls and accessing social networks. Speaking to Project, Osechkin said that both are now “tightly controlled by the FSB.”

Osechkin does not deny that he complained to Ushakov about Shchetinin, but in a conversation with Project he said that he did not remember asking him to write to the FSB. In addition, Osechkin complained about Shchetinin to the French refugee authority. Shchetinin was initially denied asylum, but was approved after an appeal. Osechkin now answers the Project’s question about Shchetinin as follows: “This person was and is in contact with the Russian FSB.” He promised to provide confirmatory audio recording, but this never happened.

The root cause of both quarrels was money. Osechkin generally thinks not as a human rights activist, but as a businessman, says his old friend Anton Tsvetkov, known for his participation in the pro-Kremlin organization “Officers of Russia”. “On his mind there was always only money, money, money,” agrees former Gulagu.net coordinator Mikhail Senkevich.

Osechkin came up with the name of his organization “Gulagu.net” in a cell in the Moscow pre-trial detention center “Medvedkovo”, his cellmate recalls, and as soon as he was released in 2011, he created a structure of the same name. Osechkin was imprisoned for fraud.

Having moved from Samara to the capital in his youth, he opened a used car dealership in Krasnogorsk near Moscow. The salon employees invented several ingenious enrichment schemes. We describe the plot of the case based on the words of Osechkin himself, documents on the case and a play written by Osechkin’s father about his own son. For example, they sold used cars that were handed over for sale, but they did not tell the owner about the sale, and they kept the money for themselves. Among the victims were local officials, the head of the Ozersky district of the Moscow region, Anatoly Pochukaev, and his deputy, Artur Shmatko. Osechkin claims that he did not know about anything – everything was done by his subordinates, forging his signatures. According to him, the authorities drew attention to the salon allegedly because of its refusal to pay for the “roof” to local security forces. One way or another, the court found guilty not only of the two employees of the salon, but also of Osechkin himself – he received seven years (but served a total of less than 4 years, having been released on parole).

In the pre-trial detention center, he began writing complaints not only for himself, but also for his fellow inmates. According to one of these, a case was even opened against the investigator, Osechkin’s father stated in a letter to the wife of one of his cellmates. After his release, the relatives of his cellmates introduced him to journalists Olga Romanova and Zoya Svetova, who had long been working on the problems of the penitentiary system. At their instigation, the recent prisoner began going on television and publishing columns in Vedomosti. On one of these broadcasts, he met Anton Tsvetkov from Officers of Russia, and on Facebook, he met a member of the Public Monitoring Committee, Mikhail Senkevich, Tsvetkov and Senkevich told the Project. Both new acquaintances were already closely connected with the authorities, and human rights activists had many questions for them—especially Tsvetkov. Senkevich was a member of the Public Monitoring Committee, served on various councils and, as he himself told the Project, communicated with deputies and “serious people.” Tsvetkov was involved in protecting the rights of security forces only, was a member of the public council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and was known, for example, for the fact that accused Garry Kasparov that he bit a policeman.

Osechkin, as Tsvetkov recalls, seemed to him then “a rising star in human rights.” It was Tsvetkov who introduced the aspiring activist to employees of the Federal Penitentiary Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, introduced him to the LDPR deputy Yaroslav Nilov, who created a council for public control in the Duma and invited Osechkin there. And Senkevich brought the newly minted human rights activist to the council of United Russia supporters – to create a commission to protect the rights of prisoners.

This is also what gave Gulag.net its first fame. To make everything look more significant, Osechkin often presented existing human rights activists as coordinators of Gulagu.net, who continued their regular work, also publishing information on the organization’s website, for example, this was the case with Senkevich, Boris Panteleev from St. Petersburg, Boris Ushakov from Saratov. “There was a riot near Tula, I went there as a member of the Public Monitoring Committee,” recalls Senkevich. — I filmed the beating on my phone and sent it to Osechkina. He posted it everywhere and people started inviting him everywhere, but he didn’t say a word about me.” The website “Gulagu.net” worked like a social network: relatives of prisoners and social activists published news there, some of which became very loud, the organization’s volunteers forwarded these publications to public reception areas of government agencies, and Osechkin commented on them in the media, never missing a single opportunity to get on the air – even on “Good Health!” program with a story about meeting his wife on a forum from a colony.

Having made the necessary contacts, he broke off relations with Romanova and other human rights activists who then participated in the protests of 2011–2012. Many years later, he would explain the quarrel by saying that Romanova simply “likes to drink” – and while drunk, she allegedly “tried to grope” the young human rights activist. “He told me then that he goes to the AP every week,” recalls former Gulagu.net coordinator Denis Soldatov. “And once he said that he was given the task of clearing the human rights clearing.”

New friends helped Osechkin start earning money – they got him a job in the public city project of the founder of the Svyaznoy chain of stores. Maxima Nogotkova “Yopolis,” Osechkin himself said. He did not say who exactly helped him, but explained that he met these people while he was a member of the working group in the Open Government. There he received an unimaginable salary of 500 thousand rubles a month. First of all, Osechkin’s large family and his organization existed on this salary. Apparently, there was not always enough money, and sometimes for the services of Gulagu.net – publications on the website or a story about the case at a round table – the human rights activist took fees, say Tsvetkov, Senkevich, Soldatov, and another coordinator of Gulagu.net Boris Ushakov and former prisoner Mikhail Golikov. Osechkin denies this. “Such signals began to arrive,” recalls Tsvetkov. “We began to curtail its activities around the council.”

It was precisely because of such an incident that Osechkin left Russia. In 2013, he introduced Denis Soldatov to Natalya, the daughter of the deputy prefect of the South-East Administrative District Oleg Malinin, who was accused of extorting a bribe. Osechkin promised Malinina round tables in the State Duma and publications on Gulagu.net and in the media, and asked Soldatov to hire lawyers. Malinina paid not only for lawyers, but also for publications, spoke she was under interrogation and has now confirmed it to the Project. Osechkin claims that he did not receive any money, and Malinina gave such testimony under pressure. As a result, in 2015, Osechkin and Soldatov were searched, Osechkin fled, and Soldatov was accused of stealing part of the money for lawyers and was eventually sent to prison for two and a half years.

Osechkin asked for political asylum in Paris, on a layover, in much the same way as he would later advise fugitive Russian security officials to do. In France, Osechkin first earned money as he had to – either (without having a specialized education – it follows from database leaks that Osechkin was expelled from the university), gave legal advice for 50 thousand rubles per hour, or sold real estate to Russians in Biarritz. Osechkin and his wife Camilla Rakhmatulina opened a real estate agency in this city – it was registered in the name of the French, but Rakhmatulina called herself as its co-founder; Osechkin and his acquaintances were also listed on website. Business may not have been going very well – Osechkin, apparently, even asked an old acquaintance from the Public Chamber if he could return to Russia. Osechkin himself published a conversation with this acquaintance Dmitry Galochkin, claiming that Galochkin contacted him on instructions from the FSB and the Presidential Administration at the same time. True, the recording contains the following words: “What did you ask the question about – you want to return, with your family, children.” Osechkin claims that Galochkin deliberately inserted this phrase to create the impression that he was the initiator of the discussion. Galochkin did not speak to the Project.

After some time, a solution was found – the human rights activist began to monetize his own experience in obtaining asylum. This is exactly how his conflict with Pavel Shchetinin happened, which we described above. This story is not the only one: almost the same thing happened with Moscow businessman Andrei Ivanov, who decided to flee Russia when they began to “squeeze out” his business. Osechkin offered him and his family a turnkey shelter for 28 thousand euros, says Ivanov. Back in Russia, Ivanov, according to him, gave a deposit of 5 thousand euros to a lawyer associated with Osechkin. And in France, Osechkin called Ivanov for a “non-standard conversation” in Ivanov’s wording, said that he suspected the entrepreneur of working for the FSB, therefore “he would write with a felt-tip pen on the board” in case Ivanov wrote him down, and offered to continue working only if he give money in cash, without receipts or contracts. Ivanov, at a loss, gave Osechkin another 6 thousand euros, but he never compiled the promised dossier for applying for political asylum. Ivanov, getting nervous, scheduled a new meeting – after asking about money, Osechkin turned on the camera and began filming the businessman, saying: “Now we have found out, you are an FSB officer who wants to ruin our reputation,” the businessman describes. Osechkin says that he did not receive money from Ivanov, but changed his mind about helping him because he realized that he was collaborating with the FSB and was himself involved in corruption. Osechkin did not disclose what evidence of Ivanov’s connection with the special services is.

Osechkin also says about Shchetinin that he did not receive money from him and did not promise legal assistance. But Shchetinin (and the Project) have an audio recording confirming this – on it, among other things, Osechkin calls the interview on his channel “homework” from lawyers, which is necessary for “preparing a case.” Such videos are recorded by almost everyone whom Osechkin, successfully or not, helped with shelter.

Who else did Osechkin take to France?

Elizaveta Zakamskaya

Osechkin helped obtain asylum in France for a native of Donetsk, who served time in Russia on charges of murder and robbery and spoke about torture in a colony on the Gulagu.net channel.

In 2019, when Osechkin was already in France, a new criminal case was opened against him in Russia – about fraud with insurance for prisoners. Osechkin came up with this idea shortly after his release from prison in 2011 – it was that if a prisoner who bought insurance was beaten to the point of disability or death by FSIN officers, the insurance company would pay him or his family compensation, and then through the court would collect the money from the jailers . At first he lobbied for such a bill, and when it didn’t work out, he agreed to sell policies with an insurance company employee he knew, Mikhail Shneiderman, who worked in four companies during his collaboration with Osechkin (“RK-Garant”, “Balt-insurance”, “Rosmed”, “TIT”). To receive payment, prisoners had to do the almost impossible – obtain documents from the colony confirming the fact of violence by its employees. But Osechkin explained the meaning of insurance differently: colonies are afraid of insurance policies and do not beat such prisoners. It didn’t always work. For example, despite insurance they beat Ruslan Vakhapov and Leonida Razvozzhaeva, but both actually avoided the insured event – disability or death. Human rights activists Pyotr Kuryanov and Igor Kalyapin claim that they knew other prisoners who were beaten despite their insurance policies. Osechkin claims that he did not make money on insurance, but only advertised it and spent the advertising money on paying lawyers for prisoners.

Like many other things in his life, Osechkin explained the insurance fraud case as a special FSB operation against Gulagu.net. However, many suspect that Osechkin works for the special services.[…]

Agent

— The activities of the organization — the Committee against Torture — take place nearby. Works for Western money… People splash out [им] problems with the FSIN and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are more than fifty imprisoned employees… [Но] the problem is how much is not imprisoned, how much compromising material the organization has that it can manipulate. Torture… is a tool of political pressure.

Osechkin gave this fiery speech ten years ago at a United Russia event. called for do not restrain yourself in preparing a new law on NGOs-foreign agents. It was discussed whether everyone who receives foreign grants should be recognized as foreign agents, or whether more criteria are needed – for example, only those who conduct “political activities.” Osechkin argued that nuances are unnecessary, because then people like the Committee against Torture can avoid recognition. “Political activity” appeared in the law, but this did not stop the authorities from recognizing whoever they wanted as foreign agents. In 2012–2015, Osechkin was a regular guest at such events – he participated in commissions and working groups in the State Duma, the Public Chamber and the Open Government, went to meetings of the presidential councils on human rights and anti-corruption – and everywhere he tried to show that at these events he very important person. At meetings, he scolded other human rights activists: in addition to the same head of the “Committee against Torture” Kalyapin, whom Osechkin first registered as an agent of the West, and years later as an agent of the FSB, especially the honored human rights activist, the head of the Moscow Public Monitoring Commission (POC), was punished; its members have the right visit prisoners Valery Borshchev. It was Osechkin who in 2013 was the person who contributed to the removal of Borshchev from the post of head of the Public Monitoring Committee – the head of Gulagu.net, for example, proved, as if Borshchev does not visit the colonies. “He fought very actively against a group of such pro-Western human rights activists,” recalls Tsvetkov, Osechkin’s friend in those years. “He exposed them, said that they live on grants, and he is a patriot.” It was Tsvetkov, with the support of Osechkin, who became the new head of the capital’s POC.

In response, Osechkin could also count on something. When he violated the conditions of parole because of a trip to occupied Crimea to present to local officials the Yopolis city project, where he then worked, and to deliver humanitarian aid to the colony, the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted to return Osechkin to the colony. “A council met in a restaurant: what to do? And Tsvetkov called somewhere and everything was decided,” recalls Gulagu.net coordinator Mikhail Senkevich, who was present. Tsvetkov confirmed to the Project that he helped Osechkin.

Nowadays, critics most often remember Osechkin precisely his position on Crimea – in 2014, commenting on the annexation on Facebook, the human rights activist used all the cliches then accepted in the Kremlin, from “our compatriots” to “the rampant neo-Nazis” in Ukraine. Gulagu.net even appeared at a rally of the Anti-Maidan movement, which took place simultaneously with protests by supporters Alexei Navalny. There Osechkin gave a speech “against any revolutions and mass unrest.” Osechkin later responded to these claims: he repented about Crimea, he went to the rally because of the words of his “friends” that “armed people would beat up protesters” there in order to “stop the violence.” And he gave a speech because “one of the security officials turned on a small camera and started asking us questions,” Osechkin said in interview Ukrainian Vladimir Zolkin. And Osechkin was allegedly not fascinated by power: “There was a strategy… to ride inside on a Trojan horse to change the system,” he said in the same interview. But this seems like slyness.

Even recent Facebook posts show that Osechkin is very proud of his acquaintances with high-ranking security officials. […]

Deputy Prosecutor of the Moscow Region Alexander Ignatenko, who later became a defendant in the famous “casino case,” participated in the fraud case for which Osechkin served time. Several high-ranking prosecutors were prosecuted in this case for their involvement in the operation of underground casinos. […] Osechkin himself called himself a “key applicant” in the casino case, but he actually did not have any status in the case, […] Osechkin himself confirmed to the Project. But this is also very typical. Osechkin generally wanted to be involved in all high-profile cases. For example, in the very same case of Deputy Prefect Oleg Malinin, because of which he almost went to prison, Osechkin’s colleague Denis Soldatov managed to get an audio recording where a mediocre Interior Ministry officer discussed with the victim in Malinin’s case how to make money from the defendants in the cases he is leading. Osechkin published the recording on the Internet and asked the deputies he knew to send requests – and a few years later he wrote that this is where the case against General Denis Sugrobov began. The head of the GUEBiPK Ministry of Internal Affairs Sugrobov and his colleagues were convicted in the case of an organized criminal community and abuse of power for provoking bribes. There is no evidence of this other than the words of Osechkin himself, and Malinin’s daughter Natalya told the Project that her father’s case was not considered as part of the charges by the GUEBiPK employees.

The biggest suspicion that Osechkin is working for the Russian authorities was caused by the loudest publication to date, Gulagu.net. In the fall of 2021, the organization received 2 terabytes of recordings from video recorders of employees of the Saratov Tuberculosis Hospital (OTB-1) of the Federal Penitentiary Service and from some other institutions. Osechkin called this leak “a secret archive of the FSIN and the FSB.” In the recordings, some prisoners tortured and raped other prisoners, and the staff filmed it.

There was almost a cinematic story behind the archive: the recordings were given to Osechkin by Sergei Savelyev, who served a long term in OTB-1, began working there for the administration as a programmer, kept the recordings for years, and upon his release, was able to hide the disk right at the exit from the colony, after all During security checks, pretend to have stumbled and hide the disk in your sleeve. Soon after the publication – which rarely happens in modern Russia – there was a reaction from the authorities: several criminal cases, dismissals in the Saratov headquarters of the penitentiary service, and even the removal from office of the then head of the entire FSIN. The reason for the resignation was not officially stated. The latter makes many assume that the initiator of this story could have been some group of influential security officials. “I think this was a special operation by the FSB, the purpose of which was to remove Kalashnikov,” commented Olga Romanova from Sitting Rus’ in interview with “Current Time”.

The materials of the case on illegal access to computer information, which was opened after the first publications of torture videos, can give some idea of ​​​​what happened. The Project is at its disposal. Savelyev did not plan to reveal his identity and leave Russia, he himself told the Project, but after the publication, the security forces gained access to Osechkin’s mail, identified Savelyev and detained him, but for some reason immediately released him on bail. So he fled to France. In his first letters to Osechkin from Russia, Savelyev wrote that he was ready to hand over the records “at the request of FSIN employees for a monetary reward,” the case file says. Osechkin paid Savelyev about 2 thousand dollars, but both claim that the money was used to buy a laptop to transfer the archive, and Savelyev allegedly wrote about “FSIN employees” for disguise.

There is another interesting point in the story with Savelyev. In August-October 2021 – just when Osechkin was talking about the “secret archive” and the evacuation of Savelyev – Gulagu.net received several significant payments in cryptocurrency, according to data from the Blockchair service. Osechkin first announced the “secret archive” in early September, and was involved in the evacuation of Savelyev in October. We are talking about seven very large transfers totaling $709 thousand. That’s more than three-quarters of the organization’s total donations over the three years 2021-2023. Only to those wallets that the Project was able to track. Osechkin said that these were transfers from a major sponsor; he also transferred personal money from the sale of plots in the Moscow region to Gulagu.net accounts. The “project” cannot verify this.

Tsvetkov, who himself has been working for the Russian authorities for years, speaks allegorically about Osechkin’s possible cooperation with the FSIN: “There have always been different groups and clans in the FSIN. And they used it as a cistern – he never checked the information.”

Many of those with whom the Project spoke about Vladimir Osechkin for this text, including those who had a conflict with the founder of Gulagu.net, recognize his extraordinary media qualities: he drew public attention to violations of the rights of prisoners, for some of which the intervention of “Gulagu.net” definitely had positive results. At least several cases of torture or death of prisoners that Osechkin spoke about resulted in prison sentences for jailers. For example, the case of the murder of Roman Sarychev, where Osechkin helped his relatives write complaints and pay for a lawyer, was told to the Project by Sarychev’s sister, and the publication of the “Savelyev archive” became probably one of the most convincing stories about torture in a Russian prison.

— The first deputy director of the Federal Penitentiary Service, General Rudy, began every day by looking through Gulagu.net. He said that half of it, of course, was lying, but under no circumstances can this be eliminated,” recalls Rudoy’s acquaintance and Kremlin “agent” according to Osechkin, Igor Kalyapin.

After the meeting in Biarritz, Project correspondents tried several more times to request the missing documents and evidence from Vladimir Osechkin. As a result, the founder of Gulagu.net again accused the editors of “working for the FSB” and said that “he does not give permission to mention his name in your “project””, quoted with the author’s spelling preserved according to the text of Osechkin’s message to the editor-in-chief of “Project” Roman Badanin. The Project nevertheless considers the story of the work of one of Russia’s most prominent wartime human rights activists to be a topic of great public importance.