In Norway, the son of a close friend of Putin was arrested: he became the seventh Russian detained for filming military installations in this country

In Norway, a Russian was once again arrested for using a drone and possibly filming the country's important infrastructure. This is the 4th case of the arrest of citizens of the Russian Federation for such violations. This time it turned out to be the son of the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin. Writes about it with the BBC.

Photo: IStock

The 47-year-old man turned out to have two passports - Russian and British. The court put the detainee in custody for two weeks.

Arrested, according to the Norwegian court, turned out to be the son of the former head of Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin, one of the closest associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“This person has Russian and British citizenship and is accused of violating paragraph 4 of the Sanctions Act for launching a drone on Norwegian territory, in Svalbard,” prosecutor Anja Mikkelsen Indbjer said.

“The police arrested a man on October 17 in Hammerfest, seized drones and electronic devices from him, which are now being analyzed. The content of the information from the drone is of great importance for the case,” she said.

Other arrests

This is the fourth arrest in a week on suspicion of illegally using drones or photographing secret sites in northern Norway. Russian citizens are prohibited from using drones in Norwegian airspace, including in Svalbard and 12 nautical miles from land.

The Helgeland District Court arrested four Russians for seven days - three men and one woman - for photographing prohibited objects. They were taken into custody on October 13, writes Meduza.

According to law enforcement agencies, Russians who arrived in Norway from Finland were detained on October 11. During the inspection of a car with Russian numbers, it turned out that earlier citizens of the Russian Federation were noticed photographing objects that are forbidden to be photographed.

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The police searched the Russians and found a lot of photographic equipment and a "relatively extensive" photo archive. During interrogation, the Russians stated that they had come to Norway for tourism purposes.

On October 14, a Russian citizen was detained at Tromso airport with a drone. In his photograph, in particular, hit a military helicopter. The Russian was arrested for two weeks, writes Currently,.

On October 11, a Russian citizen Vitaly Rustanovich was detained at the Storskog border checkpoint. His photographic equipment and two drones were confiscated. Rustanovich himself claims to be a professional photographer and, during his trip, launched drones for personal purposes. Anja Mikkelsen Indbjer did not rule out that Vitaly could indeed be an ordinary tourist, while adding that the ban on the use of drones applies to all Russians, regardless of what they shoot.

The Russian embassy in Oslo warned Russians arriving in Norway for tourism purposes that they should not take expensive photo and video equipment with them, as well as photograph Norwegian infrastructure.

Yacht and British citizenship

According to open sources, Vladimir Yakunin has a son, Andrei, born in 1975, who studied at the London Business School and Columbia University Business School. He currently lives with his family in London.

He was detained in Hammerfest, where Europe's northernmost liquefied natural gas processing plant is located.

In court, the detainee stated that he was a British citizen and lived in Italy. However, the police who carried out the arrest found a Russian passport on the yacht. The UK-flagged sailing yacht Firebird has sailed around Svalbard and along the coast of Norway for several months since this summer.

“He admitted that he flew the drone, but had no reason to believe that it was illegal. He is a British citizen,” the detainee’s lawyer said, adding that the court’s decision will be appealed.

Son of Putin's friend

Businessman Vladimir Yakunin is a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the 1990s, they were among the founders of the Ozero dacha cooperative. After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Vladimir Yakunin was included in the sanctions list of the US State Department.

His son Andrei made headlines in Russian media earlier this year when he declared his strong opposition to a military invasion of Ukraine. He said he never voted for Vladimir Putin.

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Andrey Yakunin is one of the founders of the British investment company Venture Investments & Yield Management, which invested in hotels in Europe and Russia.

According to Forbes, the most famous hotel project of Yakunin Jr. is the five-star Four Seasons Hotel Lion Palace St. in the center of St. Petersburg - was closely associated with the Kremlin.

In 2004, the company of 29-year-old Andrey Yakunin "Tristar Investment Holdings" received a lease from the Presidential Administration of the building of the famous "house with lions" by the architect Montferrand - for reconstruction into a de luxe class hotel. The Kremlin department planned to place seven apartments there to receive the leaders of the GXNUMX and other guests of the president.

The project was accompanied by scandals. First, because of the construction of the attic, which was prohibited by the law on the protection of monuments, and after the opening of the hotel, by high-profile arbitration and criminal proceedings: the investor, with the support of the Presidential Administration, accused the construction contractor of violating the terms of the contract and recovered 4 billion rubles from him. The contractor went bankrupt, and its owner Viktor Smirnov came under investigation. He was accused of embezzlement and attempted fraud, and he was forced to emigrate to London.

In 2017, Forbes valued property managed by VIY Management at $1 billion. Delovoy Peterburg estimated Andrey Yakunin’s fortune in 2020 at 20,4 billion rubles ($275 million at the exchange rate of that time).

Representatives of the company Venture Investments & Yield Management (VIYM) said that Yakunin Jr. used the drone for recreation during a trip to Svalbard in late August. “Andrei is passionate about nature, photography and extreme sports, as evidenced by his activity on social media. Andrey, a British citizen, is fully cooperating with the authorities to provide all the necessary information about the innocent purposes of his vacation on the boat, ”says VIYM.

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