Leaked FSB Data; Information Compromised from Russian Officials

The leak of data from the FSB, Russia's security agency, includes first-hand information about citizens who crossed the border from 2014 to 2023, revealing the movements of high-ranking Russian officials and their relatives, while also exposing many of Moscow's lies. Before this data was quickly deleted, a group of investigative journalists in Russia stored and analyzed it. The 'largest FSB data leak' occurred about a month ago on a website selling leaked data, which published a list of Russian citizens who left Russia during the war years. At that time, Russian investigative media speculated that this list was a 'promotion' of more detailed data belonging to the Russian security agency that had long been rumored to have leaked. Among them, Russian publications 'Mediazona' and 'Agentsvo' reported that through their sources, they learned that about 500 gigabytes of information likely leaked from the FSB border guard was sold for $270,000. A few days ago, Andrei Zakharov, one of the most prominent investigative journalists in Russia and the author of a book on the illegal trade of data in Russia, announced the release of complete information from the FSB border branch titled 'Kordon (Border) 2023' and added that to verify the authenticity of this information, he checked the data published about himself and a few of his friends. He called this massive data leak 'the largest leak of information from the Russian security agency.' Ilya Priobrazhensky, a journalist from the investigative media Dosye, confirmed the authenticity of 'Kordon 2023' but speculated that the source of this data might not be the FSB. The leaked data includes full names, birth dates, passport numbers, and places and dates of passport issuance, border crossing dates and locations, destinations, and vehicles (complete vehicle information, train or flight numbers, and private jet specifications). It remains unclear whether this information resulted from a hacking attack or was leaked by an FSB employee or another agency in Russia. This data was taken offline three days after its release. The data from 'Kordon 2023' indicates that since the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine, which led to extensive sanctions against Russia and restrictions on Russian citizens traveling to Western countries, Russian officials have primarily traveled to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates instead of Europe. Last spring, the President of Russia signed a decree that allows official trips abroad only with coordination from a special commission for the protection of state secrets. It had also been reported earlier that the Russian security agency confiscated passports from many officials and employees of state-owned companies. According to the publication 'Agentsvo' and based on the leaked data, a group of Russian officials who previously traveled frequently abroad have not left Russia in the past two and a half years. Among them are names such as Sergei Sobyanin, the Mayor of Moscow, Tatyana Golikova, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, and Sergei Naryshkin, Head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Most Russian officials who had previously traveled dozens of times to European countries rarely leave Russia now. For example, Nikolai Patrushev, former Secretary of the National Security Council and current assistant to the President of Russia, visited Mozambique once in the past two years; his son Dmitry, who was previously Minister of Agriculture and is now Deputy Prime Minister, traveled to Uzbekistan, Oman, and Abkhazia; and Marat Khusnullin, another Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, has been a guest in Tajikistan once. Unlike official officials, Russian lawmakers still travel abroad for vacations, while since the summer of 2022, by a State Duma resolution, representatives of the Russian parliament must provide a complete account of their foreign travels. The publication 'Agentsvo' estimated that before the war, France and the Maldives were the main destinations for Russian lawmakers' foreign trips, and after the war began, Dubai took the lead. Ksenia Shoigu, the daughter of Sergei Shoigu, who was Minister of Defense of Russia until this spring, left Russia 14 hours before the start of the large-scale military invasion of Ukraine. Sergei Shoigu was one of the few Russian officials who knew the date of the attack by Russian forces on Ukraine. Ksenia subsequently returned to Russia but has traveled to the United Arab Emirates more than eight times in the past two and a half years. Last year, the publication of her photo in a villa belonging to a member of the Vologda City Council in Dubai caused a stir on social media and faced harsh criticism from 'Z reporters.' This controversy led to restrictions on official officials' travel from Russia. However, these restrictions did not affect Ksenia Shoigu, and she traveled to Dubai several times in the following months. Ksenia Shoigu, 35 years old, has been the head of the Russian Triathlon Federation for four years and is responsible for three state projects in sports and history. Maria Vorontsova, Vladimir Putin's eldest daughter, has left Russia 34 times between 2014 and 2023. During the same period, Katerina Tikhonova, Putin's younger daughter, traveled abroad 61 times, using a private jet for 14 of these trips. Russian media have frequently reported that the Gulfstream G200 jet belongs to Sibur, of which Kirill Shamanov, the first husband of Putin's daughter, was previously a board member. Lyudmila Ocheretina, Vladimir Putin's ex-wife, has traveled abroad 28 times in the past ten years. Alina Kabaeva, who is said to be Putin's girlfriend and the mother of his three children, has left Russia 32 times (in 80% of cases with private jets), with most of her travels before the war being to Switzerland, Italy, and the Maldives. After the war, she traveled several times to her hometown of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. The television network 'Dozhd' reported that the two daughters of Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnya, used passports issued for Tabarikh Musaeva and Hedi Musaeva to travel to Europe, while they have two other passports under the names Tabarikh Kadyrova and Hedi Kadyrova. They were among a group of twenty who traveled to Paris in spring 2017 on an Airbus ACJ319 jet, which is said to belong to Kadyrov. Ramzan Kadyrov has been under EU sanctions since 2014, and since 2022, his mother, three wives, and two daughters have also been sanctioned. The leaked data also includes the travels of Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of Telegram. The publication 'Vazhniy Istoriy' estimated that he traveled to Russia more than 50 times between 2015 and 2021, with most of these trips occurring during significant developments surrounding Telegram. This analysis has also been confirmed by the investigative publication 'Insider.' It has been reported that most of Durov's travels to Russia took place in 2017, the year the Russian security agency demanded the surrender of Telegram's encryption keys and first attempted to block the messenger. Durov also made multiple trips to Russia in the summer of 2020, coinciding with the revelation that the Russian government had abandoned its efforts to block Telegram. Several of Durov's trips to Russia occurred in 2021, coinciding with the date of the deletion of bots that Navalny's headquarters had launched on Telegram to assist opponents of the ruling United Russia party ahead of the Duma elections. Durov's numerous trips to Russia occurred while he repeatedly emphasized that he had not been to the country for years. In 2017, the year Iran filed a complaint against Telegram on the grounds that terrorist networks were using it against the management of the messenger, he wrote on Telegram: 'I cannot travel to Iran or Russia; Iran considers me a criminal, and the FSB has joined in pursuing me in Iran.' Durov has resided in Dubai in recent years and holds citizenship in Saint Kitts and Nevis, the United Arab Emirates, and France, but it has been revealed that he also possesses a valid Russian passport amid the indictment and confiscation of his passports in France.