An Uphill Battle to the Kremlin

H eleven studio and Coolso Media production. We're now halfway through season two of sad Oligach, so this episode is an interlude of sorts. As you can probably imagine, the work that goes into this project is absolutely massive. We're knackerd We're essentially fighting an uphill battle against Kremlin state media, FSB interference and a huge Russian wall of silence. It's all become extremely difficult to navigate, especially for season two. We also don't have the resources to spend months on

the ground in Russia. I actually can't even go to the country, and as a proud Ukrainian, Surgery is of course not about to jump on a flight to Moscow. So for this interlude, we want to share with you some of the behind the scenes struggles of what you could call the sad Oligach extended universe. Now, this is not to be like, oh for us. The point I'm making is things have shifted massively since when we first started reporting on this in twenty twenty two to twenty

twenty three. I think that in itself is a big indicator of what's going on with this possible deep state Russian conspiracy to take out perceived enemies of the state. So me and Surgery sat down to discuss all of this going forward. When we first started this project two years ago or now, it definitely was not easy, but I feel like it was a lot easier perhaps than it is now. This second season, it's just been chaos, trying to dig into stuff. Add one and two together.

It's been a lot. What would you say has been the hardest part this series? Like, what's been more difficult than it was previously.

there's practically no updates at all. It's usually like, oh, like the guy hung himself and yeah, there's no updates. You know, with the previous stories, like so the first season was like what twenty two the deaths were from like twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three, right, there was a bit more details. They would dig in a bit more. You'd get maybe like oh, like the police were investigating, and like the case is open and they're doing something. Now it just seems to be like the bare minimum.

It's like, oh, this person was working at this office, they did this thing, and now they're dead. It's really like it's almost like a little blurb at this point. And you know, on one hand, you could say maybe some of the deaths are less notable. You know, we had like Pregosion, we had like Rapaport, like these big profile cases, but we've had some pretty big profile cases

in the second season as well. So it's not to say that like, oh, these people are less interesting or less important, like I would say, you know, it depends on the case by case, but some of these people are just as big as the previous cases we covered.

But the information is just really hard to find. I don't know if it's you know, intentional censoring or kind of like the government being more the Russian government being more kind of like maybe kind of like selective with what to announce, on what to say, or maybe it's just a genuine kind of like getting tired of it kind of thing, right, like a fatigue. But the overall effect is there's just way less information, way less details. I feel like the most details I find is independent

like telegram channels posting stuff. Maybe people who were like walking by it like a like a death right, like some citizens came over and filmed it and then they send it to a telegram channel. Like that's where I find the most information. Like the the guy that like allegedly shut himself with a shotgun that was only because somebody stopped behind his car and like filmed it, right, and that's all I was kind of that was like the epitome of the reporting that we saw from that.

The actual news outlets didn't they get into anything past that, and it's just kind of tough finding anything.

you know what I mean. I feel like there's a very big shift in journalism in general in that way. And I feel like there was a lot of attention on Ukraine of course for the first year, massively rightly so, and then the second year at Wayne and now I feel like it's even less and hand in hand, yeah, the press is definitely a lot less interested. I don't know, do you think it may be linked to that? It feels like that to.

lot of people don't know where it is. They just hear like a different city or maybe like a target, like the target was a far distance away, so that's interesting. But other than that, it's you know, it's really kind of same thing over and over again, like how many times can you report on it? And I think that's

kind of what's happening here. You know, another guy thought out the window, another person hung themselves, and especially with them giving so little details, it's almost like they wanted to be boring, like as boring and uninteresting as possible, right, And I think it's like the only thing that's changing is the names basically maybe the name of the city and then maybe like one or two details around it even like you remember some of the first that's we'd

have a death and there would be a note, and we'd have like a picture of the note or at least that transcribing of the note written out. Now it's like, oh, he left the note, but let's say we don't know what they wrote. They kind of don't publish that anymore. It almost seems like they kind of like don't want attention on it, and like they kind of want to kill the interest before it kind of gets out there and people start looking into it more.

that could be told. You know, I know so many reporters that are out there finding really interesting human stories. You know, Granny is on the front line. She's turned her house into like a makeshift hospital for soldiers, and you know, stuff like this, and I feel unfortunately there's a lot less funding for that style of reporting. I

think the two go hand in hand. It's kind of not enough shocking new things are happening, but there's also not the resources to tell the more deeper stories out there. For example, I can't see anyone else would have done, you know, like I did with Frontline Huligan when we were out there trying to find out, you know, what was the makeup of the territorial forces, which obviously, by the time we finished editing, the war had fully stied.

I feel like there's two things going on there. But definitely the side of things with the media is crazy. For example, when we did like episode one of season one that we did so Vasilli Melnikov, the guy who allegedly murdered his old family and killed himself Nizgy Novgorod, that very nice area in Moscow where a lot of these oligs actually had strange deaths. You know, there was so many details, Like you said, there was I think there was a note with that. There was the knife

that he allegedly did it with. There were scenes photos from the crime scene. There was even one of the other deaths where the guy had you know, cut his wrists and he was in the bath and there was even images from the bathroom this season. I don't know about you. Obviously were halfway through, but we've done a lot of research already for the rest of it. I haven't seen a single crime scene photo regarding any of these deaths. I've not even seen a photo of evidence

of what happens. At best, we get some kind of long range show of like authorities pulling a body out of somewhere. Maybe okay, now it's time for a quick outbreak, all right, not for that, now back to the shore. I feel like there's been a kind of concerted effort,

maybe straight from the Kremlin. I mean, the press is mostly controlled by the Kremlin, so maybe they kind of understand not to but I do feel like there's almost a concerted effort to be like, right, we're going to continue if this is what happening, which I think it's clear, is we're going to continue taking out people that mess with the state mostly. I think this kind of points back to stealing and spying. We're going to take them out the way we do it, but there's going to

be a lot less details. I don't know, am I being paranoid.

much pain and that's why he did it. We have like a full on photo of him laying there like clearly dead, you know, on the floor, Like the crime scene is right there. It's not like it's not like a distance photo or anything like. It's it had to have been taken by like I assume some kind of you know, like police examiner, like crime scene investigat or

something like that. We had that online within like the day, if if not like hours, you know, And then like you said in the in this recent instances, the only time we see a crime scene is if the public posts it. We don't see anything like extra like there's no police like statements or posts about it. It's all

very like we're just investigating, like we're investigating. Usually they say there's no criminal like element or whatever, and that's it, and then like like finding updates has been hell, I can't find anything. The only thing that's like posted, like besides the like breaking news story or like, oh, this person died, it's always like, oh, Russian oligarchs are dying and here's a list of them. Were just like regurgitating the information we already have. Like there's barely any updates,

barely anything kind of being followed up on. Can't find any like maybe like police or like like kind of like government like statements or reports. Nothing comes up in a sense, maybe they just don't want it to come up, right, let's kind of like it happened, let's let's forget about it. Let's not bring attention to it. We don't want want people asking questions. Yeah, I think it's just like again, I don't think you're being crazy. It's it's pretty obvious

that the information is very limited. I mean Russia does this with other avenues, you know, with the war. If you're talking about how the army is struggling, or if the government's not doing enough for the military or whatever, like that's a big no no. So why wouldn't the same apply to you know, potentially government sponsored or you know, ordered murders and stuff like they definitely would have want that.

It's like, why would you want to write you don't want to kind of like people know if that's enough for them to know, you don't need to have all the details of who, how and all that.

He's gone completely silent. What about Russian? In Russian, if you found like anything from any of the guys from season one.

Then there was Dan Rapaport who fell out of his apartment in Washington, d C. Who else is Zeleno Zeleanov? He died in France where he like tripped over his railing and like hit his head on the car or whatever. No updates pretty much for Rapaport. I found that, like his investigation was, it's basically so like it's open, but they're not investigating it unless something new comes up. So they can't close it officially because they don't have a

specific manner of death. So at this time it's like undetermined and the death is listed as sudden or unexplained. And the report from the chief Medical Examiner, so this was in November, a few months after his death in August twenty twenty two. I believe it says multiple blunt force injuries due to a fall from height, Like that's it, like he fell out of his apartment. That's it. They and they have this like conclusion, but they also don't have a definitive answer. So because of that, it's kind

of like a limbo. Apparently the case is open, but it's not being investigated, so they also don't have like so it's not closed, so you can't access the details of the investigation because it's technically ongoing. So it's kind of stuck in this limbo where nobody can access it, but nobody's investigating it, so which is kind of weird. I could also find an update that his wife was allegedly looking to do like a because you say, like

a personal investigation. She ordered his blood to be tested for like texacology report to kind of I guess see maybe he was at very at least maybe he was drunk, or if he has something in a system. But there was no updates since it was just like a mention that she wanted to do that, and she I think it was like immediately after his death she was very very certain that there's no way that it was a suicide. And then but that was really the only case where

I could find updates even in the West. There was another one in UK. Was it Michael Watford. I think his name is same thing. No updates. A lot of these, interestingly, are ruled like suicides and they're closed, so there is no way of investigating it further, right, because they're kind of they kind of kind of like a close and shutcase, so there's no really like like they're not intending to follow up on it at least seems like they just rule it a suicide and the case is closed.

I think it was a Grade eleven or something. History books and the media is known to be on the very strict tight control. The narrative is typically very like manufactured and decided on by the state, Like I don't see why they wouldn't also control this narrative, right, And again,

it's not even controlling it. There's just no information. It's not like it's not like there's a wealth of information that is out there and they're trying to suppress it, like itses doesn't come to begin with, Like I'm finding it really hard to find stuff for the new cases and basically no updates on old cases.

want to be involved. I don't know, I feel like maybe that might be because it's not just oligarchs now right. Obviously, the kind of sad oligarch monika is because a lot of oligarchs were falling out of windows and the state was saying, oh, they were just depressed, or the police were saying they would depressed. Oh yeah, hah, sad oligarch.

But of course there's a lot of people that are maybe not necessarily in the bracket of oligach, but they are definitely political, their power brokers, they're attached to the state. It feels as if they're going to go for anybody.

people there dying arrested. No one's saying anything. I feel like, if my theory is true, I feel like the state is using this kind of deep state possibly FSB attacks on their critics or their people next to them that aren't behaving. Okay, now it's time for a quick ad break. Well enough for that, Now back to the shore. I feel like it's extending further, Like the to pus, his legs are gone from oil and weapons to other industries that the state controls. Does that make sense?

of them were definitely like just playing all oligarchs. And it's not to say that maybe there were like suspicious that's happening before that, right, but they kind of brought that spotlight onto it the war in Ukraine, and then like all of these deaths happening suddenly. I'm sure like there were deaths of like minor or smaller kind of like maybe see eos or kind of these like scientists that happened, but maybe nobody noticed, right, and then this

attention was brought onto it. Even when I'm working on these different cases, I'm like, well, does this person count is an oligarch? Right? Like this does he even count? Should he be included? I think a lot of times it's like if they're tied to the state, and if their deaths are really sus suspicious, it's like, I think

it's worth looking into it. I think part of it could be that, like before the war in Ukraine, there was like an illusion of what a great state Russia is, you know, second and greatest military like economic powerhouse by its own kind of like that's what it saw itself. I think most people didn't see it that way, but Russia wanted to be or at least pretend to be right.

And then I think the failed invasion of Ukraine now reaching it, like the three Day operation going into like the third fourth year, I think it kind of shattered that illusion for the world. But I also think I think maybe Putin thought that there really were you know, like they were going to go in in three days. Like I think he might have believed that because you know, you're not gonna tell putin Dada. Oh yeah, Actually our military has been corrupt and I've been sealing money from you.

There's probably a lot of bullshit of like the reports being sent forward, right, And I think I think the case we talked about last with the zelenorghs and the well what is it called Reshetnev, Like, I think that's kind of it's a good case study for the overall situation because this kind of corruption is kind of like you know, taking some money off the top from the budget. That's very common, and that's just very like standard practice almost,

you know. And I think maybe after seeing these failings continually, you know, continue failing in Ukraine. But also like there were reports definitely in the beginning of the war and like thing this second year. I don't see it as much now, but like that a lot of like equipment wasn't up to standard. A lot of things were like tanks were like fixed and fitted out to you know,

to operate on paper. But then when you go to the storage, they're all rusting away and the money that was allocated for that is in somebody's bank account, right.

I think a lot of that is being kind of like I think the government itself is kind of finding out just the scale of the corruption and like money just kind of sinking, and now that they actually need this money, they kind of need every penny to count at this point, right, Like they're clearly struggling against Ukraine, Like yeah, they're making advances, but like how much soldiers are they're losing, how much money are they spending into this. I think at this point they need every penny to

count kind of thing. And I think this is where they come in and they're like okay, like for example, again going back to Shetny of like okay, we have this company that's supposed to do our satellites, it's supposed to help with our targeting, and fifty million rubles just

went to some bullshit media company. You know. I think they can't sustain this kind of corruption at this point, and I think that's what we're seeing, Like how they send somebody from Moscow instead of this seventy year old guy who was there for I think it was like two decades. Like he's clearly not doing his job. He's part of the corruption. We need to like they're like stealing the holes in the boat right, they're they're kind of leaking, they're gonna they're they're not getting their results

they want, and they need to patch it up. I think that's kind of what we're seeing here, and I think that can apply to multiple cases. I just think this shading of case was kind of the most most kind of like out there, Like we have the court filings, we're seeing that, like multiple people are getting either arrested or under criminal investigations for stealing money, and like a

very open and clear case of what's happening. But there's no way that that's a unique case or like, oh, this is like a once in a million kind of thing, Like this is pretty standard across Russia. And I think they're realizing that they can't keep you know, this war and keep their economy going with all this corruption, and

they're trying to fix it up. And I guess maybe some of the ways of fixing it is getting rid of some people who you know, like kind of worked against the state, Like it's trees and right, kind of stealing money, delivering goods that aren't good and just delivering like on pay You're like, yeah, yeah, everything's good, we

have this. I don't know, like weapons system, or we have these I have this like munition, and then you get delivery and it's half missing, or it's or it's like rotting or you know, like old stuff that know what you paid for. I think it's catching up to them and they're trying to kind of clear house.

time being like, wow, Ukraine has been invaded. It's all over and lo and behold. You know, Ukraine fought back, of course, with a lot of help from the West, but Ukraine has really held it up. Things will look bad on the front lines. I've got friends out there, and things are doing very badly on the front not necessarily just because of Russian firepower, often because of corruption on the front lines as well on the Ukrainian side, but that's another story. But things are bad, but still

they are resisting, they're still holding up. And Putin has made a you know, a really miscalculated move here, and I really do believe that it's because people told him like, it's all going to go fine. This is always the quandary of the tyrant. If you act like a tyrant, people around you are scared to tell you what's really going to happen because they don't want to fall out of favor. And I really think that's what's happened. We've seen Putin get rid of certain corporal, certain military men

that would have been helping them. We saw the absolute madness with a progosion who you know got toasted in the plane. Well, an accident. We all know what happened there. It's very clear. We covered it in season one. And I think you're right. I think he's kind of got to a point where he's gone, right, this is not how it was meant to go. He's reshuffled things. He said, let me look at this, let me look at that. And again, you're right, people that were maybe within an

industry like Russia. Nev like, oh, it's you know, it's satellite systems. Glossnos, it's like the GPS system. They're not necessarily directly thinking about the soldiers on the front line that are invade in Ukraine. However, Putin will be, people attached to him will be if they look, oh right, this this satellite business that is meant to be creating a good radar for our soldiers. Oh, there's literally billions of rubles have gone. Literally almost a billion dollars in fact,

was essentially pilled for the way. No one really knows where it's all gone. Several people have been arrested involved there, as we know. The head of account at Rashiat Nev committed suicide, maybe by proxy, maybe someone got to him. And it's that thing where well, yeah, you're essentially now stopping your country winning the war. That's what could be in his mind. This is so bad, this corruption is so bad that you're directly involved in stopping the country

winning the war. Of course they're not winning the war because of many different factors. But if you are the kind of tirant minded megalomaniac that I think it's clear Pooting is again most Western leaders are the same, just from a different avenue. But I think it's clear that's what Putin is. And yeah, it's gonna look like right, you know, you're gonna feel my wrath. I really think

that's what's happening. I think it's spread to different sectors, and I think it's almost this kind of blood for blood, you know, like, okay, well this many of our troops died. And I can link it in a way, however esoteric you want to do it. I can link it back to the amount of money you've stolen. Okay, well, blood

for blood. Your head will roll as well. And you know, if we look at what happened to so many reporters, so many politicians, even if you look at the madness with navalni Vignenko, you know, poisoning people across the world. I don't think it's at all a stretch to say, yeah, Putin is probably or maybe not poohing, but people around him are probably not just clearing shop as I feel

like a lot of it was in Season one. I think now this is almost a war within, like an offensive against these people that might be seen as traders. Does that make sense?

aren't giving their all. Like we're actually like the military is fine, but we just need like support these people who failed. They were stealing money, they weren't delivering contracts, they weren't you know, fulfilling the like whatever, like refurbishments of like different vehicles and stuff. And Yeah, at this point, it's like who do you blame? Right, Like you imagine you're like a security service person, Like on their Putin You're like you're hearing his pissed he needs to find

somebody who to blame. Like maybe you'll find who to blame, right, You'll you'll find the somebody to fall on the sword instead of yourself. Right. I think that's kind of the environment he created, like I think any of the dataship has that, you know, if he can just get pissed and like fire people, put them under arrest or even get them killed, put them on a goolag like navoliny rate. You don't want to be You kind of want to give him somebody to be angry at rather than him,

like maybe lashing out whoever's closest to him. So it's like you start looking for like, yeah, like where where is you know, where's the issue? Was it the arms not being like up to standard or they're not being enough of like like the contract wasn't filled out because half the money's gone to somebody's pocket. I think I think I feel like it would create like a rippled

through the system where everybody's kind of like panicking. They're like, well shit, I don't want to be the one that's taking the fall for this because like I also think for Putin, the war is more like ideological at this point, whereas a lot of people in the system were just there for the money, you know, and they're I think you've saw like a lot of reports were like oligarchs and like some higher ups weren't happy with the war.

In Ukraine because it just interrupted their like their money making, right. I think they were satisfied with selling oil kind of getting their money through whatever means they were doing it, and this war in Ukraine kind of jeopardized that. And I think there, I just think a lot of people there aren't as like ideologically driven as Putin is with kind of restoring the Soviet Union and having like an

empire or Russia be like this great nation. I think they were just happy to be there for the money. But now Putin's ideology is overtaking that, and they're like, oh shit, okay, we got we gotta save our ass. We gotta like show Putin that we're committed. And then some people have to go as like you said, like a blood for blood, like who's gonna who's gonna pay for this? And who's gonna answer for our failures kind of thing.

what's going on? And then you find out one of the contractors is stealing a bit of the dough and doing a half fast job, but just so we can make a little bit extra, right, you find out, you get rid of that contractor like you're out here, what the fuck are you doing? Times a thousand and put a war and put one of the most powerful countries in the world, with the leader being a complete authoritarian

happy to kill Tyron. It makes sense. It makes sense that he's gone, Okay, you'll learn you'll be so scared to do this in future because you might actually die. And I can really see that being a possibility. One one last thing. And I don't want us to think we're too fucking important. I know journalists have a real sometimes an ego complex, like they think the work is so huge, But do you think people in the Kremlin

are at all aware of this series we're doing. I think it's possible if someone's gone, what the fuck, like what is this? Not that they care? Not that like, oh, they're gonna come after us, Like why would they give a fuck? Like they do this themselves. A lot of these deaths are kind of with a nod too. Yeah, we did that. But yeah, do you think they know about this?

media that we're very against. Put in linked wars who suddenly went to Moscow, got a load of dough and came back flipped and did the other thing and started doing the propaganda for Moscow. I think there must be someone keeping track of that shit. I reckon it's possible they've at least heard.

who were like being paid by the Kremlin. Right, They're very much like in like I guess could say they're advanced in that sense, like they they have a pretty deep kind of like understanding of how it works how to influence things online. And Yeah, I think I think they definitely at least heard of it, right. I think they probably would have checked out to see, like is

this concern? Do we need to care about this? I think a lot of the time, just ignoring it would probably be best for them because like either like if they do anything related to this, it's like almost like like legitimizing it. I guess, right, I think they can be like, oh, just let them talk, let them like, let them do what they think they're doing, and like

doesn't bother us. Again, It's like for them, it's like, you know how a lot of the time the Kremlin will put out like just a bunch of different narratives and it's kind of twisting and it contradicts itself. Like that's kind of the point. You put out so much information from all different perspectives that the person is like, well, shit, I don't know what to believe. And I I think that's kind of where it is, where it's like they just don't care. They just need people to be confused

and not know what's happening. I think the limited information is kind of doing its own work. It's like if if there's nothing to report on, then who cares. Right, we can't find anything at this point pretty much, it's really hard to find like more details. It's hard to find any court cases and information on it. So I think that kind of fixes itself in a sense because it's like you only know as much as we want

you to know, and yeah, I don't know. I mean we'll see, maybe we'll have like a somebody reach out to us be like, hey, comrade, we're listening the worry I love.

fucking deal. He was a Russian uh citizen, and so I completely understand. It's very sad, but I completely understand why they went for him. But I do think you're right.

I think probably someone's looked at this and like dickheads, like you know what I mean, even if they're like I dare say, they're kind of interested as well in a way, just on a personal level, because if you look at all the comments on anything in Russian, the reports on any of this stuff, even now, you can just tell the citizens, no, this is nonsense, Like they're laughing they're like, wow, another one. Oh he tripped and fell. Oh he fell out of a window. They're so clumsy.

Like we're still seeing that, right. People know, or at least they suspect that it's bogus.

get all perspectives on that. I also think it's a bit of a different time, right. I think at this point, the government is not as concerned with looking good, you know, like back in two thousands when the whole thing with Chichina and the bombings happened, it's like Putin was still kind of solidifying power orreas. At this point, I think it's such a stranglehold that it doesn't really like nothing's

gonna shake it from the outside especially. It also might have been kind of more kind of threatening because this is like a Russian reporter, right, that was in Russia, and kind of I feel like, I feel like they're more concerned with their domestic audience and they don't really care what the West thinks. Right, the West is the enemy, the West is this is that like they don't don't they don't really need to save face with the West, especially at this point where they're in the full on invasion.

You know, they're saying that they're not out a war, would you there word with NATO, But it's just like NATO's being sneaky and like there's like videos of like oh yeah, like American commandos were found in like in like Ukraine fighting against Russia. It's like, right, you know, they're kind of past the it's just Ukraine. They're they're on full on like yeah, it's NATO fighting US.

Thanks very much, Mine speak. So you've been listening to sad Oliga Season two, Produced by H eleven Studios for Cool Zone Media. Writing, editing, producing, concept and recording by myself Jake Hanrahan. Research and reporting by Sergei Slipchenko, me and Victim Mihail. Executive producing by Sophie Lichtman. Music by Sam Black, artwork by George Jutefu. Soundmixed by Splicing Block. See my other projects at Hanrahan dot tv. Get me

on social media at Jake Wonder School Hanrahan. That's h A N R A H A M