Alexander Gusov

Affiliated media: Telegram channel Novy Vek, Administrator

Incident date: February 3, 2023

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Mediazona

Location: Russia, Moscow, Moscow

Additional information:

The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow has arrested the creator of the Telegram channel Novy Vek and PR specialist Alexander Gusov until April 2. Gusov is suspected of extortion of property on a particularly large scale (Paragraph B of Part 3 of Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to TASS, the second defendant in the case is Alexander Shvarev, a Rosbalt journalist who left Russia and was arrested in absentia, accused of extorting billionaire Alisher Usmanov and libeling him. The investigation claims that Gusov and the «organiser of the criminal scheme», who is abroad, received RUB 12 million from a «Russian businessman and philanthropist» over «several years», threatening him to publish «fictitious» dirt. In the early days of February, the latter filed a police report. According to Russian media reports, Yota founder Albert Avdolyan is the victim in the case.