On May 20, the aggressor’s propaganda spread a statement about an alleged “historical event of common memory” when Vladimir Leontiev, declared in the criminal role of the “head of administration” of Novaya Kakhovka, handed over “historical artifacts” in the form of folders of the “Krasnaya Zvezda” and “Pravda” newspapers of the 40s of the past century in the aggressor-controlled Simferopol “Central Museum of Taurida”.
However, the local collaborator Andrey Malgin, acknowledging the “valuable printed publications” that Leontiev allegedly “previously was able to buy out”, but apparently simply appropriated in the process of looting at the captured Nova Kakhovka, did not bother to explain what, in fact, is the real value of these newspapers, available in almost every aggressor-controlled regional archive.
However, it is possible that Malgin plans to wrap the most valuable artifacts in these newspapers during the criminal “evacuation” as part of the looting of the Crimean museums, which we described earlier.
However, Leontiev, a former political worker of the Soviet army who stole from the base in Baikonur, always had a “special” relationship with the press. In particular, it was publications in the media that contributed to the dismissal of Leontiev from the “Chumak” corporation, the controversial Swedish businessman Carl Sturen, after multimillion-dollar scams with “leftist” workshops in Donetsk that produced counterfeit goods.
Further, the press covered his real estate in Turkey and in Kyiv’s Pechersky Hills, and scams already in senior positions at the Novokakhovka Building Materials Plant No. 1.
Therefore, it is not surprising that when in March 2022 this old agent of both the “Russian world” and the Russian special services fell into a criminal “position”, one of the first atrocities he committed was the kidnapping and beating of Oleg Baturin, a journalist from the “Novy Den” newspaper, for his pro-Ukrainian position, this crime is now being investigated by Ukrainian law enforcement officers.
