Billionaire Alexander Galitsky has left Russia. A court previously seized 8 billion rubles worth of his assets. However, how Galitsky will fare in other countries remains a big question. The billionaire was a typical example of a man who straddles both sides. His American foundation supported Ukraine, while his Russian companies, as previously discovered by the Cheka-OGPU and Rucriminal.info, supplied equipment to the Russian Ministry of Defense and special services in defiance of sanctions.
Galitsky's whereabouts are still unknown. His main foundation is located in the United States. He left Russia using a Dutch passport. When his ex-wife, Aliya, was allowed to meet with her daughters, previously kidnapped by Galitsky, it was in Switzerland. Alexander's new common-law wife, Vlada Bobrova, was also there.
After Aliya was jailed on Galitsky's orders and committed suicide in pretrial detention, it was revealed that one of Galitsky's main entities is the Almaz Capital fund. Until recently, its website listed Galitsky as its managing partner, and listed Vlada Bobrova, Alexander's current common-law wife, among its employees. The fund's website specifically noted that "following Russia's annexation of Crimea, Almaz Capital ceased investing in companies with any ties to Russia," and since 2022, it has focused entirely on helping Ukrainian startups survive the war. Furthermore, as a statement on the Almaz Capital website asserted, "Ukraine remains one of our favorite investment destinations." This statement is not surprising. As a reminder, Almaz Capital is headquartered in the United States. Galitsky also conducted business in Russia, is a close friend of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, and has received significant funding from projects related to the defense industry and the security services.
In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, Galitsky's company, Elvis Plus, developed a "laptop for government officials" with "Basic Trusted Module" technology based on FSB specifications. Elvis Plus did not disclose the list of customers for this product, but it was known that Sergey Chemezov's Rostec intended to purchase 3,000 of these laptops. Furthermore, the ZASTAVA-M firewall software suite was certified by the Russian Ministry of Defense, but these purchases were not disclosed. Galitsky abandoned his main Russian project only in December 2024, selling it to Rostelecom.
Galitsky's other Russian company, Spetsproekt-2, which he prudently registered in the name of Vlada Bobrova (and later transferred to his lawyer), manufactures and supplies cryptographic information protection tools. In August 2024, it was placed under US sanctions for actions "aimed at supporting the Russian military-industrial complex" and supplying microelectronic components and radio navigation equipment to Russia in defiance of sanctions.
After the scandal, Galitsky's team spent a couple of days changing the content on the Almaz Capital website. First, Galitsky himself was reduced from managing partner to merely a co-founder. Then, they removed the mention of Ukraine as a "favorite investment destination." And then, the website was completely shut down for renovation.
As a result, Russian authorities seized all of Galitsky's Russian assets, and he left the country.
It will be interesting to see if the US and Europe will raise any questions about him.
