WEBVTT - Hanged in a Secret Nuclear City 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:02.880 Media. 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:06.960 Something strange is going on. Another member of the Russian 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:08.119 elite has been found dead. 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:11.200 Reports suggests that he fell out of a window, poisoned 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:12.959 with mushrooms. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:16.360 Died of heart failure, died of carbon monoxide poisoning. How 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:17.080 comesy are they? 0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:22.959 Dozens of Russian oligachs, politically motivated millionaires have died in 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:28.000 the space for three years, most of them in suspicious circumstances. 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:32.199 Many have hidden links to the Kremlin. This is sad 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:37.960 Oligach Season two, an ongoing investigation into these recently dead 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:42.880 Russian power brokers. Sad Oligach is created by me jake 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:47.960 Hanrahan and my Ukrainian colleague Sergei Slipchenkov. This is a 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:58.920 H eleven studio and Coolso Media production. December seventeenth, twenty 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:05.120 twenty three. Fifty year old senior accountant Evgeny Postragan is 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.880 in the garage of his private home in the closed 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:13.560 city of jelen Nogorsk, hidden away in central Siberia. This 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:21.240 is a place unlike any other, its secret clandestine. Postragan 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:26.520 works for a state satellite development company. Postragan is tying 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:27.240 a knot. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:28.800 In a thick rope. 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:33.840 He pulls the ends toward test the slack. He's making 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.560 a noose. Even in the garage. His breath catches in 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:42.480 the cold. Small wisps of white eke from his lips 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.920 as he fixes the rope. At this time of year, 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:50.680 it's deadly freezing outside. Jelein Agause hits lows of around 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:54.360 a minus twenty in the winter. A few feet beyond 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:59.120 the garage walls, everything is snow and ice. This is 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:07.880 the Siberia Agent after all. Postragan has finished his noose. 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.680 He pulls off a stool, stands on it, and ties 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.800 it to the rafters. Above a tear drop loop of 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.799 ropes weayhs inches from his face, the vast unknown expanse 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:27.360 of the afterlife just moments away. Posture Gan pulls the 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:32.400 noose over his head and kicks away the stool. He drops, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.040 his body weight slowly chokes him. The rope tightens stiff 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.360 around his neck, his legs dangling and kicking in the air. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:51.880 Everything goes dark. Eventually he stops struggling ef Guinea, Postragan 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:57.920 chokes to death by his own hand. Sadly, Postragan's wife 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:02.240 found him hanging from the rafters, his feet dangling his 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:10.440 heart still, his life gone. This is the official story 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:15.320 from the Russian State of how Evgeny Postragan died. Of course, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.640 the Russian State is most definitely not a reliable source. 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:23.520 Before we get into what kind of a man Evgeny 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:26.600 Postragan was, let's have a look at the kind of 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:32.680 place Zeleno Gorsk is. In short, it's a clandestine city 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.360 in Russia built up to produce nuclear weapons for the government. 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:43.320 Serious location with a shadowy mo. I speak to journalist 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:47.520 Matthew Gault. He runs the publication Angry Planet and is 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:53.320 extremely knowledgeable on all things nuclear. So I think maybe 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:57.840 the first thing would be maybe to kind of explain 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:02.320 why these closed ease happened, why would they started up, 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:03.520 and what was their purpose. 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:09.680 They predate nuclear weapons because there were like some there 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.240 were some planned cities that they were making kind of 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:17.080 east of the Ural mountains before nukes because they needed 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.480 like an industrial base kind of overnight to produce weapons. 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.279 But then like it really gets going in nineteen fifty 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.600 when the Soviets go real big on nukes and they 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.160 kind of adopt this model that they'd seen the Americans use. 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:35.800 The Americans when they were doing the Manhattan Project set 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:40.039 up these secret cities Oakridge, Los Alamos, where they brought 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.320 in all of the scientists and the scientists' families and 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.440 all of the labors that they needed and kind of 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.480 built these closed cities almost overnight. And the Soviet Union 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.640 does the same thing at like a massive scale. And 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.480 they need them because, like, nuclear weapons are very secretive 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.599 and you don't want people to know where your stuff is, 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:02.640 and that's why they get started, and like why there's 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.000 so many of them, like in the Siberian area in 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.000 like in eastern Russia in general. 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:13.040 This place was from what I understand, primarily made for 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:17.520 the production of nuclear weapons. Right, there's plutonium. How does 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.760 that all work? Is that something they would mine? Is 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.000 that something they would produce? It's going over my head 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:24.000 a little bit, I'll be honest. 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:28.039 So it's pretty fascinating the project that happens in this 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:32.359 city specifically. Have you seen the Have you seen like 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.599 the city's flag or it's cut of arms. 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:35.520 It's incredible. 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.960 It's one of the coolest flags of the bear right 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.839 in the atom. Believe it or not, this clandestine closed 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:46.320 city actually has one of the coolest, most eye catching 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.000 flags I've ever seen. 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:50.640 The background is bright red. 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.000 On top of that, there's a yellow bear inside an 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.320 atom symbol at the center. The bear, with an angry face, 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.360 is trying to break apart the atomic core. It's cracking 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:06.919 in two, literally split in the atom. Now this isn't 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.760 some relic from the Soviet era either. Back in those days, 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.760 jelener Gorsk was actually called Krasnoyask twenty six. Its flag 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.800 back then was a blue and orange checkered background with 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.960 a red and yellow lion's crest in the center. The 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.320 lion is holding a shovel and of course a sickle. 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:30.320 The current flag, though for Jelen a goorsk with the 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.200 bear and the atom symbol, was approved and put into 0:06:33.320 --> 0:06:37.960 use in twenty twelve. The closed city's description of it, 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.600 which varies quite differently from mine, shows just. 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:43.799 How proud they are of it all. Quote. 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.680 In a scarlet field, there is a silver sign of 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:51.080 an atom with three intertwined orbits, and inside the orbits 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:53.960 there is a golden bear threaded through them with silver 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.839 fangs and claws, rising straight and turning to the right, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.640 tearing the silver core on the sign of the atom 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.320 with its front paws and resting its hind paws on 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:08.240 two of the three orbits end the quote Jellen and 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.720 Gorsk might be private and closed off, but Russia is 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.760 most definitely proud of its current utility and history. To 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:17.800 be fair, the way they built the place is a 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:19.640 serious feat of engineering. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:21.680 So the city, you think it got up to about 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.800 one hundred thousand people like in its heyday. And what 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.520 they do is they bring in a bunch of goolag labor. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:33.360 They hollow out a nearby mountain and they build three 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:38.320 nuclear reactors in there. And the nuclear reactors are dual use, 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.480 so they produce they like heat and cool the city. 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.120 They do like they power the whole city, but they 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.560 also produce plutonium that is used in the manufacture of 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.560 nuclear weapons. I think like at the end of the day, 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.280 something like a third of all of the plutonium that 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.600 was used in the Soviet nuclear weapons is produced in 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:58.280 this mountain. 0:07:58.960 --> 0:07:59.720 It's hard to explain. 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.680 It's it's like almost a warehouse setting, but it's actually 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:03.800 hollowed out in the mountain. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:04.560 Is that what you mean. 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:09.960 Yeah, it's almost like they it's almost like some supervillain stuff. 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.040 Yeah, it sounds very James Bond, you know. 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:15.120 Yeah, Well, they have this huge mountain, they hollow it out, 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.000 they build these nuclear reactors under there, and they ferry. 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.880 The mountain is like a I think it's like twenty 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:24.600 thirty kilometers away from the city itself, and people live 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.680 in the city and take shuttles back and forth, and 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:33.240 they're the whole city is kind of based around this, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.800 like producing plutonium for the Soviet nuclear weapons program. And 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.280 it's really interesting because at a time when it's not 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:47.240 great to live in Soviet society, this is the place 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:47.520 to be. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.080 The thing with the society of the USSA is that 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:57.760 it was, of course communist ostensibly anyway of communist friends 0:08:57.760 --> 0:08:59.560 who tell me real. 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.000 Communism has never been. 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.800 Tried, and I tell them they've never tried real life. 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:09.080 But anyway, in the Soviet Union, private ownership was highly restricted. 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.880 What you got would often depend on class status, which 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.760 was often linked to someone's employment. Really not much different 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:20.160 from the systems we have now. Similarly, the elite of 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.920 the USSR group fat and had whatever they wanted, but 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.480 the workers were not so lucky. Jelly n Gorsk, though, 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.200 was a rare place in Siberia that gave employees a 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.400 lot more access to otherwise restricted goods. 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.440 It was not just a job. 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.439 For like forty years. These are probably some of the 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.280 best treated citizens in the Soviet Union. They've got the 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:47.600 best foods, they've got the best clothing, they've got the 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:52.120 best you know, the best housing. It is good. Do 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.200 they have chocolate, which like other places don't have. Some 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.520 of the stories are about how much chocolate they got 0:09:58.559 --> 0:09:58.880 to eat. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.280 Yeah, I read it was one of the few places 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:05.680 where you could have a car as well. Okay, now 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:12.080 it's time for a quick outbreak, all. 0:10:12.040 --> 0:10:14.720 Right, not for that. Now back to the shore. 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:23.640 Now. The downside is that it's sealed. There are there 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.200 are guards at the entrances and exits of the entire city, 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.679 and it's monitored by Soviets secret police. Like the whole 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.080 place is watched over. So like it's it's a gilded cage, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:37.200 but it's still a cage. 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.160 Say you were living there, obviously, you work there, you 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.800 live there. It's how it works. It's kind of feudal 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.040 in a way. But if you're living there, can you 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:48.760 just freely go in and out? Like it's not just 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.920 to stop people getting in, from what I understand, it 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:53.720 also kind of stops people getting out. 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:56.880 Yeah, no, No, they don't want you to leave because 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.760 there's like if you work in the plutonium and if 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.880 you work in the plutonium factories, like you have secret 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.600 knowledge of how the Soviet unit is producing the fuel 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:10.679 that makes its nukes. And this is a It's also 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.880 interesting because like Los Alamos are like Oak Ridge, the 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.520 culture is very mixed, meaning that you've got people that 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.920 are laborers and like working class people, but then you 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.120 also have nuclear scientists, like some of the smartest people 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.320 that are in the country live in this live and 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.200 work in the city and are doing like fringe science 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:39.040 and so and they you don't want those people leaving either. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.560 So that's why you build it like in Siberia, which 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.080 is an easier place to like keep people in and yeah, 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:47.600 you aren't getting in or out of there. 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:49.240 That is crazy. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:56.680 So the proximity to the plutonium production, how how does 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.560 one produce plutonium? 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.400 The would do is they would bring in the minerals 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.359 from outside and they would put them in these reactors, 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:09.920 and these reactors would they would both power the city 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.400 and then they would also spit out plutonium plutonium. I'm 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.720 gonna screw up the designation. It's like two thirty six, 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:17.800 I think, which is what they would use in their 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.520 weapons program. And the way they would this is kind 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:27.080 of wild. They would cool the reactors with the nearby river, 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.800 which also flows downstream and has a bunch of other 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:33.800 cities that are feeding off of it. Especially this time, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.720 nuclear reactors are not they're pumping the waste into the ground, 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:40.840 but also like it's backsplashing into that river that they're 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.840 using to cool everything, and if kind of irradiating all 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:46.520 of the citizens and everybody that lives downstream from them, 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.240 so like incidents of breast cancer and birth defects in 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:53.400 that city and then like everybody that lives downstream from 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.360 the city are pretty high. They keep producing plutonium there 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.160 for a while. So at the end of like when 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.359 the Soviet Union collapses, they shut down two of the reactors, 0:13:05.240 --> 0:13:08.600 and the way the reactors work, they can't keep going 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.680 and not make It's like always going to be outputting 0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:14.959 plutonium that you can only kind of use in weapons, 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:19.360 and so it becomes this weird problem. Like in the 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.760 early nineties, when they shut the reactors down, Russia is 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:26.280 like dismantling nuclear weapons. They're left with this one reactor 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.400 that is like spitting out plutoni like weapons grade plutonium 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:31.440 constantly and like piling up, and they don't know what 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.760 to do with but they can't turn it off because 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:35.720 then the city, like the city doesn't have power. 0:13:35.880 --> 0:13:41.280 Basically, eventually, in twenty ten, with international help, Russia managed 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:44.760 to shut down all the old reactors. In that time, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.719 though serious pollution had damaged the area, still business had 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:53.840 to keep on moving weapons to build profit to make 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:59.040 new state companies of the New Russia took over when 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.680 the Postagon ended up working for We'll hear more about 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.040 that in a bit, but for now, just understand that 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.480 we live in a time where nukes are very much 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:13.240 back on the table. This could be relevant. This place 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:18.720 is jelen Agusk. It's potentially a lot more significant, especially 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:20.960 considering the war in Ukraine, which a lot of this 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.680 points to that. You know, they were talking about tactical 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.640 nukes and now you've got Trump talking about nukes. If 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:31.520 there's ever a time when the uptick of production or 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:36.320 watchful eyes on the region of this closed platonium place 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.160 in jelen a Gausk, I feel like it will be now. 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:45.160 Yeah, I think so. But unfortunately it's really wild. What's 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.720 happened like in the past ten years. It's like after 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.960 the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had this nice 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.960 twenty year period where we have some really great treaties. 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.400 People were kind of drawing down their nukes. America was 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.280 in the Soviet Union a whole lot helped with a 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.120 lot of the cleanup and a lot of the study 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.040 and a lot of the shutting down of the reactors 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:12.160 in that mountain. Now, post Trump won, post COVID, like 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.960 all the old treaties are on hold. Russia's not coming 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.600 into American inspecting anything. America is not going over to 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.480 Russian inspecting anything. If you were doing something in that 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.160 mountain you didn't want anyone in the international community to see, 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.360 now would be a great time to do it, because 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:27.680 no one's watching anyone in the way that they used 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.160 to be watching anyone. 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.280 It turns out that there is plenty going on in 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:39.480 Jelling of Gauze that shouldn't be. We've dug deep and 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:44.680 eventually we found some payda. First, though, let's take a 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:50.200 closer look at Postragan. December seventeenth, back on the night 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:54.280 of his death, Evgenny Postragan headed out of the house 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:58.960 before he hanged himself, where too no one seems to know, 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.080 came back and did the d Perhaps he went out 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.920 for a walk just to clear his head and decided 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.160 that he was definitely going to take his own life 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:10.440 when he got back. 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:12.920 It's more than likely. 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:18.200 Another possibility he went out to meet an undisclosed person 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:22.560 who gave him some very bad news, so bad that 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:29.040 Postragan could see only one way out. The cloak and 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.400 dagger nature of a closed nuclear city in the heart 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.960 of Siberia means there's very little to go on. But 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.240 what we have found out is that Postragan was largely 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:45.080 liked by his peers and the local community. One person 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:50.280 anonymously describes him as a quote kind and decent man. 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.200 Locals say they don't feel he would have committed suicide. 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.920 It would have been his fifty first birthday, four days. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:16:59.560 After his death. 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.840 Apparently he didn't seem depressed or preoccupied. No, not to them, 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:09.159 who knows what's going on in someone's head. According to 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:13.720 state media, Postragand had actually been posting depressive messages on 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:19.360 his VK page. He allegedly posted up pessimistic Japanese poems 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:25.520 hayakus of melancholy. Perhaps the works of the famous Japanese 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:31.000 poet Matsuo bashoal sick on a journey my dreams, wonder 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:36.200 the withered fields over still fields of snow, or winter 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.160 solitude in a world of one color, the sound of wind, 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.359 or weather beaten skeleton. That is all the remains of 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:49.960 a once gallant samurai who knows. We didn't get a 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:54.919 chance to see which depressive Japanese poems Postragan posted. His 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:59.760 VK page was disabled shortly after his death. In fact, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.640 all of Postragan's social media was wiped as soon as 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:10.439 he died. It was all gone disabled with haste. What 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.240 we do know, however, is that he was last online 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:18.680 on VK at six thirty three pm on December sixteenth, 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.560 one day before he died. It's also this day that 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:26.480 he went out on his own again, with nobody knowing. 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:27.200 Where he went. 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.679 Could just be a walk to clear his head, or 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:39.680 it could be something else. If Postragan's suicide was actually 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.080 just a suicide, why did he do it? Why take 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:50.080 his own life? Well, according to state controlled Russian media, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.960 it was maybe because of quote a lot of funds 0:18:54.240 --> 0:18:59.159 from the company he worked for, reshet Nev Information Satellite 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:04.159 systems really rolls off the tongue. This company is a 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:09.359 subsidiary of the Russian space agency ros Cosmos. We know 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.119 from two episodes back that you do not mess with 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:18.800 ross Cosmos. As we heard earlier from Matthew Gault Zellner, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.920 Gorsk is a closed area with multiple defense manufacturing facilities. 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:30.560 They produce weapons grade plutonium. The line of work Postragan 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.560 was involved in, though, was to do with the satellite systems. 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.919 Russia's satellite network is supposed to arrival the GPS system 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:46.120 we have in the West. It's also used by Russian 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:55.560 military to assist with Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Okay, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:03.520 now it's time for a quick outbreak. All right, enough 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.480 of that, Now back. 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:05.800 To the shot. 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:14.040 As you've probably noticed through series one and two of 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:22.600 sad Oligarch, feels as if all roads lead to Ukraine. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:29.159 It's through the prism of Putin's disastrous invasion in twenty 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.399 twenty two that oligarchs and the power brokers in their 0:20:32.520 --> 0:20:40.840 orbit began dropping like flights. However, Postragan was not an oligach, 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.000 but he was most definitely in the sad Oligarch sphere 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:46.119 of influence. 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:47.119 And disaster. 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.320 His role as a senior accountant at reshat Nev possibly 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.600 put him in the crosshairs when the company's coffers began 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:56.680 to run dry. 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:58.560 Where is the money going to come from? 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:02.040 The lost fun the Russian media spoke about in the 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:07.720 report on Postragans suicide begins at about eighty billion rubles, 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:15.240 that's almost a billion US dollars in twenty twenty three. 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:20.160 This was the amount of money rashat Nev lost. They 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:29.639 lost almost one billion dollars. That's a hell of a problem. 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:32.639 We've been chipping away at this case, and whilst on 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.040 the surface it might seem like a cut and dryer suicide, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.399 there is obviously a lot more going on, specifically with 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:42.719 postra Gans place of employment. 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:44.880 Let's talk to sergery. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.959 It's funny, I think we see this connection with basically 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:56.159 almost every single suspected or suspect death in this series, 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:58.600 especially where it all seems to tie back to Ukraine, 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:02.720 especially with this company the same as Ross Cosmos, like rockets, 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.159 that kind of thing. It's all the same technology, and 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.560 this again it's a it's a company that's directly tied 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:12.439 to the state, like the Kremlin owns this company. 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:13.800 Essentially, right, yeah. 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:16.560 One hundred percent. So again, ros Cosmos, the state like 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.600 space agency, essentially owned this company one hundred percent. Ros 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.520 Costmos is the parent company and they basically own it, 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:25.400 they oversee it ros Cosmos, But more so the government 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.760 kind of decides the leadership and stuff like that. Right, 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:30.840 So if there's a change in the CEO or whoever, 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:34.120 like the director general, it's going to come from Moscow, 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:36.959 even though this this thing is like, you know, thousands 0:22:37.040 --> 0:22:41.160 kilometers away from Moscow in Siberia. Yeah, Like ros Cosmos 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.560 is the main owner of this company. 0:22:44.040 --> 0:22:48.520 And as is with pretty much every company that we've 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:52.800 come across, there's there's a lot. 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:54.040 Of corruption at this place. Right. 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:56.840 So again it seems to be this pattern at the 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.040 minute of very little information out there. But then and 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.480 when we dig in and have a look, there's embezzlement 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:04.520 seems to be at the center of all these cases. 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:08.840 Post Gan he himself was let's say, attached by a 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:13.879 proxy at best and completely involved in the embezzlement at worst. 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.719 Right, Postergen was the CFO, I guess we would call 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:20.200 him right in the West, chief financial officer. I think 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:24.040 they called him the head accountant of the place, so 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:27.080 he was leading the financial department. From by understanding, he 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.920 started as just an accountant of the company, like back 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:32.720 in two thousands, and over the years he ended up 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.439 leading the place. The person that was in charge of 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.720 the actual company was Nikolai Destodov. I don't know if 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:42.880 he's officially under an investigation, but he was definitely involved 0:23:43.160 --> 0:23:46.920 with the comms directors fraud investigation, who has been criminally, 0:23:47.720 --> 0:23:51.040 if not charged, definitely investigated for fraud and embezzlement. 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:54.800 It's here we start to understand where the missing billions 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:59.399 might have gone. Everyone from the communication officers to the 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:03.480 boardroom execs seems to be some way involved in mass 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:08.400 embezzlement at rishat Nev. As the head of financial management 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.680 at this company, how could Postugan not have known. 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.159 It would be hard to deny that, you know, the 0:24:15.200 --> 0:24:17.960 head of the financial department had no idea about any 0:24:18.000 --> 0:24:20.399 fraud or embezzlement. It would kind of seem like the 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.919 thing that he should, if you know, if not at 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:26.280 least be involved, be aware of or understand that money 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:28.960 is going somewhere where it's not supposed to. But there's yeah, 0:24:29.000 --> 0:24:34.600 the company was corrupt. The Sutlan and Bashkova. She was 0:24:34.640 --> 0:24:38.760 in charge of the direct communications and she basically had 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:41.040 a company that it looks like it was a fake company, 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:46.320 but she created Prometheus Medium and she would get like 0:24:46.400 --> 0:24:50.320 contracts for the company to create like in the in 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.600 the court filing, it was like media products, so I 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:58.639 think like videos, maybe like advertisements, things like that. And 0:24:58.760 --> 0:25:03.280 despite the act company like Rashnatiev actually having their only 0:25:03.760 --> 0:25:06.840 press corp press service or whatever, like basically media people 0:25:06.840 --> 0:25:10.679 who could do this already, and she would sign contracts. 0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:12.760 It says that like over I think it was like 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:17.280 six years, she basically gave this fake company that she 0:25:17.359 --> 0:25:21.959 created over one hundred contracts totaling like forty three million 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.960 rules when all the work was actually just done by 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:26.800 the team that they already had. 0:25:27.359 --> 0:25:30.880 This is some next level brazen theft of company funds. 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:36.280 The communications officer made a fake company, gave said fake 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:40.919