Remember Aleksandr Bastrykin’s “forest scandal“? In light of the horrors Leonid Razvozzhayev says he endured, merely hauling a journalist out into the woods and threatening his life looks positively quaint. Bastrykin has managed to survive — and indeed thrive — amid not just the forest incident, but also the revelations about his unreported properties and business dealings in Europe. And his sharp bureaucratic elbows have made him plenty of enemies inside the elite.
Will the mushrooming scandal around Razvozzhayev’s abduction and alleged torture finally be the one that brings him down? I wouldn’t count on it.
looking beyond borders 