Ex-FSB officer behind 'Kremlin Laundress' gets 11 years for paid 'negative-blocking'

The Moscow Garrison Military Court found Mikhail Polyakov guilty of extortion and sentenced him to 11 years in a penal colony, a correspondent for Ostorozhno, Novosti reported from the courtroom. Polyakov is a former FSB officer and owner of the Telegram channel 'Kremlin Laundress', which stopped updating in August 2023.

According to investigators, from November 2020 to July 2023, Polyakov demanded 42.5 million rubles from the Russian IT company Lanit in exchange for not publishing negative information on Telegram channels — a so-called 'block on negative'. The case file, in addition to 'Kremlin Laundress', also mentions the channels Nezygar, VChK-OGPU, Banksta, and BRIEF.

At the time of the alleged episodes, Polyakov served in the second service of the FSB directorate for Moscow, which is responsible for protecting the constitutional order and countering terrorism. By the time of his arrest on July 14, he had already retired. The court also stripped Polyakov of his colonel's rank and fined him 800,000 rubles.

The criminal case against Polyakov became known in July 2023. Citing a source close to the security services, Important Stories then reported that Polyakov oversaw pro-government Telegram channels in coordination with Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy head of the presidential administration, and worked with Alexei Goreslavsky, head of the Internet Development Institute. The source claimed that the reason for his detention was disagreements with leadership: Polyakov began engaging in commerce in pro-Kremlin channels without coordination.

In 2022, police detained administrators and authors of anonymous Telegram channels on charges of extorting officials and businessmen, including Rostec head Sergei Chemezov. Ksenia Sobchak's commercial director Kirill Sukhanov received seven and a half years in a strict-regime colony, and former Tatler editor-in-chief Arian Romanovsky received seven years. Alexandra Bayazitova, host of the blog 'Hellish Grannies', was sentenced to five years in a colony; she was released in July 2026.