Death in Russian police custody, secret assets and U.S. sanctions: how Russian billionaire Alexander Galitsky became central to the case of Aliya Galitskaya
A source at media said that yesterday the Interior Ministry held a “post-mortem review” following the death of Aliya Galitskaya in the Istra temporary detention facility (IVS). She was sent to jail by her ex-husband, billionaire Alexander Galitsky. Galitskaya knew many secrets about Galitsky’s business, and he has much to hide.
As our project has found, Galitsky—who lives mostly abroad—secretly owns the company Spetsproekt-2, which has been placed under U.S. sanctions. Initially, the LLC was registered to the billionaire’s common-law wife, but since she also lives outside Russia, Galitsky urgently re-registered the company in the name of his lawyer.
According to the source, during a regular video conference yesterday, Viktor Paukov, head of the Moscow Region police directorate, reprimanded Alexander Voronin, head of the police Main Investigative Directorate. Paukov expressed doubts that there had been sufficient grounds to open a criminal case against Aliya Galitskaya.
Addressing Voronin, Paukov said that his subordinates had “created problems for themselves out of nothing.” The general was referring to the clearly questionable criminal prosecution, arrest, and death of the suspect in the IVS—a facility directly subordinate to the Interior Ministry.
In addition, according to our source, an investigator from Russia’s Investigative Committee visited the Interior Ministry’s investigative department in Istra today—officially to review the criminal case against Aliya Galitskaya. These actions are taking place as part of a pre-investigative inquiry under Article 110 of the Criminal Code (incitement to suicide). Yesterday, both Alexander Galitsky and staff members of the detention facility were questioned.
According to the version put forward by detention officers, Galitskaya turned on the water to distract attention and then took her own life using her clothing. Her body was discovered near the metal backrest of the bunk bed when a guard became suspicious and entered the cell.
We previously noted that Galitskaya died under strange circumstances. On the day of her death, two cellmates were removed from her IVS cell and transferred to a pretrial detention center (SIZO), leaving her alone. Galitskaya herself, after a court ordered her arrest, was returned to the Istra IVS instead of being sent to a SIZO. She met with lawyers and was actively giving them instructions.
In the fall of 2025, Aliya Galitskaya told a correspondent that Alexander Galitsky had taken her abducted children to his new common-law wife, Vlada Bobrova, in whose name he also registers many of his assets. We decided to verify this information and discovered many curious details.
Vlada Bobrova, Alexander Galitsky’s new common-law wife, is a 49-year-old Muscovite and a graduate of the Moscow State Linguistic University. Until 2017, she worked as a translator at KCA Deutag, an international contractor in the onshore and offshore drilling market. In 2017, Bobrova joined Galitsky’s international venture fund, Almaz Capital, headquartered in Portola Valley, California, with an office in Berlin. According to official information, Bobrova currently serves as Galitsky’s business assistant—at least that is how she is listed on the fund’s website.
In October 2025, Vlada Bobrova also became director of the Personal Fund “Kovcheg” (Ark), which is registered in the elite Millennium Park cottage community in the Istra district near Moscow—where Galitsky’s own residence is located. The founders of “Kovcheg” are concealed in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, but it appears that Galitsky uses the fund to consolidate his Russian assets.
Until September 2024, Vlada Bobrova was also among the founders of the Russian LLC Spetsproekt-2, which is engaged in the production and supply of cryptographic information security tools. In August 2024, Spetsproekt-2 was placed under U.S. sanctions for actions aimed at supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex and for participation in sanctions-evasion schemes. According to U.S. authorities, between March and November 2023 the company imported microelectronic components and radionavigation equipment worth approximately $52 million. After this, Vlada Bobrova urgently exited the list of the company’s founders. Her place was taken by lawyer Alexander Semin.
As medias have established, Semin is an employee of Galitsky. According to leaked data, he worked at Elvis Plus during the 2020 pandemic—a company owned by the billionaire.
Closely linked to Spetsproekt-2 is the company Modum LLC. Previously, the list of Modum’s founders included CRPT LLC, the operator of Russia’s “Chestny Znak” product labeling system. Alexander Galitsky, it should be recalled, is one of the beneficiaries of this labeling system: among its founders was his company Elvis-Plus Group (the same company where Semin worked). As of 2022, Galitsky, through his Elvis holding, owned 25% of CRPT; another 25% was held by the Automatics concern (part of Rostec), while the remaining 50% belonged to Alisher Usmanov through USM Technologies. Usmanov, it should be noted, also owns the newspaper Kommersant, from which—according to our project yesterday—all materials about court cases between Aliya and Alexander Galitsky were removed.
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