Cracks in Putin's Nuclear Shield Lead to Arrest of Russian Millionaire

A Russian millionaire responsible for the country's nuclear shield is being tried in a Moscow court in the wake of a series of attacks by Urkaine.

Evgeny Novitsky, founder and former president of Moscow-based conglomerate AFK Sistema, and current chairman of RTI Systems, a defense contractor which primarily serves the Russian Ministry of Defense, faces fraud charges.

However his arrest has prompted suspicion that Russia may in fact be punishing those it deems culpable for shortcomings in its missile defense system.

According to independent Russian media outlet Agentstvo on Telegram, Novitsky was detained by Russian Security Forces on Thursday, though the reason for his arrest remains unclear.

According to state-owned news site Tass, Novitsky is being held on suspicion of fraud, specifically violation of Article 159 of the Russian criminal code concerning large scale fraud. If found guilty, Tass claims Novitsky could face up to ten years in prison. Interfax similarly reported that Novitsky's alleged crime is of an economic nature.

However, the Telegram account of Baza, a news outlet with sources inside Russian law enforcement, said that Novitsky's arrest related to his activities as a leader of RTI Systems.

Cheka-OGPU, a Telegram channel known for finding leaks from Russia's security agencies, said: "The detention of Yevgeny Novitsky coincided with a number of investigations into the embezzlement of funds of the Ministry of Defense, allocated to OJSC RTI, the chairman of the board of which was Novitsky for a long time.

"In particular, an investigation is underway into embezzlement through the creation of hardware and computing complexes for the ground segment stations of the Voronezh early warning system. Novitsky supervised their production at AFK for a long time."

RTI Systems and AFK develop and produce long-horizon radars for the Voronezh stations of Russia's missile attack warning system, some 200 miles from the border with Ukraine.

Putin previously considered the Voronezh radars the centerpiece of the country's ballistic missile warning system, even awarding the RTI System designer the State Prize of the Russian Federation.

In early June, the president even used his confidence in the missile defense system as an underhanded threat to Europeans.

"If, God forbid, it comes to some strikes, then everyone should understand that Russia has a system of SRPN - a missile attack warning system," Putin told the audience at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum. "The United States [has it too]. Nowhere else in the world is there such a developed system. There is no developed system in Europe. In this sense, they are more or less defenseless,"

However, the system has proven vulnerable to Ukrainian attacks in recent weeks.

In late May, Ukrainian media reported that a drone had struck a Voronezh radar system in the Russian city of Orsk. Earlier in the month, a Ukrainian drone hit a similar radar station in the southwestern region of Krasnodar.

According to the Telegram Channel of Cheka-OGPU, while Novitsky's arrest was framed as Russian courts dealing with a serious instance of fraud, it is more accurately viewed as an expression of dissatisfaction with RTI's radar stations.

"The Russian authorities have set a course to imprison all those who were related to certain elements of the current air defense system," the Telegram post reads.

It also claimed that Vladimir Shukshin, who supervised activities relating to defense at Novitsky's other company, AFK Sistema, is reported missing.

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