As it became known to Kommersant, for the defendants of the largest espionage scandal - former chiefs of the operational management department of the Information Security Center (CIB) of the FSB Sergei Mikhailov and computer incidents department of Kaspersky Lab Ruslan Stoyanov - the state prosecution requested the maximum sentences. This means that those accused of disclosing the FBI for $ 10 million in methods and methods of conducting operational investigative activities in the case of the founder and director general of the Chronopay processing company Pavel Vrublevsky can spend 20 years in a strict regime colony. Mr. Wroblewski himself called the “terms” the “requested” “symmetrical response” to the sentences handed down in the United States to Russian citizens.
According to “Kommersant”, February 18, during the trial of Sergei Mikhailov and Ruslan Stoyanov, which takes place in the Moscow District Military Court in a closed regime for the media, a discussion took place between the parties. The representative of the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office (PRT), who supports the prosecution, considered that the defendants were guilty of the crime under Art. 275 (of state change) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, fully proven, and demanded for them 20 years in a penal colony. In response, the defense asked to acquit the defendants, believing that, on the contrary, there were no facts of the treason in their case. It is expected that next week Messrs. Mikhailov and Stoyanov, who do not admit their guilt, will speak with the last word, after which the judge will retire for sentencing.
The criminal investigation department of the FSB opened a criminal case against Sergey Mikhailov and Ruslan Stoyanov on December 6, 2016. Soon in the workplace, counterintelligence officers detained an officer of the CIB, and then a former operative of the special technical measures department of the Interior Ministry, Major Ruslan Stoyanov. By this time he was already working at Kaspersky Lab.
In addition to them, two other defendants were arrested and arrested by the Lefortovo court - Dmitry Dokuchaev, a subordinate of Mr. Mikhailov, and businessman George Fomchenkov, subordinate to Mr. Mikhailov, but their case file has not reached the military court yet. All four were charged with treason.
According to the investigation, in 2011, through intermediaries, Colonel of the FSB Sergey FBI transmitted information about operational activities in the case of the founder and general director of the Chronopay processing company Pavel Wroblewski, who is considered a cybercriminal in the United States. Colonel Mikhailov and his subordinate obtained these data by participating in the operational development of Mr. Wroblewski, who was accused of organizing a DDoS attack on the Assist payment system in July 2010, due to which citizens could not buy Aeroflot electronic tickets for several days. According to the investigation, having collected information relating to the state secret, Colonel Mikhailov recorded it on a CD, which he handed over to Major Dokuchaev, and the one to Kaspersky Lab employee Ruslan Stoyanov.
The latter flew in 2011 to an international conference on cybersecurity in New Denver (Canada). There, as follows from the materials of the criminal case, Mr. Stoyanov handed over the disc to Kimberly Zents, an employee of the American company I-Defense, engaged in information protection and actively cooperating, according to the FSB, with the FBI. According to a similar scheme, the investigation believes that entrepreneur Georgy Fomchenkov acted, having taken out another disk with secret data to the USA. According to some data, they were promised remuneration for the information totaling $ 10 million. However, it is still unknown how much exactly the alleged traitors received and found large sums of money from them.
Mr. Wroblewski learned about the time requested by the prosecution from Kommersant. At the same time, the businessman himself considered them "a logical and symmetrical response to those sentences imposed on Russian citizens in the United States."
Mr Wroblewski noted that the role of the two accused in the crime was clearly different: Colonel Mikhailov, he noted, is “a clever enemy and a traitor who understood perfectly what he was doing and how much damage his actions inflicted on the Motherland”. According to Mr. Wroblewski, the Chekist "initially wanted to achieve career growth and went to cooperate with the FBI, which, as I understand it, began to provide him with information." Implementing these data, the colonel rose in the service, and when in response he was required to disclose the operational methods of the FSB, he "easily agreed." As for Ruslan Stoyanov, then, according to Mr. Vrublevsky, he “rather started to play in the fight against cybercrime, hackers, and in fact was simply used by Mikhailov in his game”.