Russian Extradited to US For Buying Unclassified F-16 Manual

Russian citizen Oleg Tishchenko to face charges in US for buying fighter jet manuals to use in a flight simulation game DCS World after extradition from Georgia.

It appears that Eagle Dynamics has kicked their employee to the dogs, claiming that Tishchenko was acting in a “purely private context and for his own personal interests.” Even though the manuals directly relate to a new module for the F-16 that DCS is releasing soon. Doesn’t sound like the sort of company anyone would want to work for.

This is yet another case of American legal imperialism, which treats entire world as its jurisdictional demesne. How long will Russia continue to tolerate such arrogant pretensions?

That said, holidaying in West-aligned Georgia isn’t very smart for people on American watchlists. Actually it’s probably worse than going to Western Europe, which may not be as eager to carry out political extraditions as Washington’s lickspittles in Eastern Europe. Irony is, there’s a good chance that this dev was pro-American. As I have said, Georgia has become very popular amongst the Moscow hipster set.

Comments

  1. His forum posts (he is calling his account Olgerd)

    https://forums.eagle.ru/search.php?searchid=24531759

    And he asks about F-16 questions on an F-16 forum
    http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3179

    Here the US court allegations:

    https://www.scribd.com/document/409901537/18313672245

  2. Outrageous, disgusting to say the least.

  3. What realistically can Russia do?

  4. reiner Tor says

    Military action against Georgia before the extradition, freeing him using military force. It’s pretty absurd to arrest someone for supposedly breaking the laws of another country without ever setting foot on its soil.

  5. The new slogan for DCS would be “Someone went to jail to bring you THIS GAMU!”

    There was even something on RT on this, wait

    May 17: Armed F-16 jet crashes into warehouse as pilot ejects at California military base (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

    No, that’s not it …

    Ah, here:

    May 14: All for game realism? Russian jailed in US for ‘buying F-16 manuals to help make flight simulator’

    While the sender said he didn’t see any materials marked as classified and was assured the texts were obsolete, the mailing still broke the arms exports laws as combat systems manuals are included in the US munitions list and require export licenses for shipment overseas. Tishchenko was charged back in 2016 but was eventually arrested only this year when he travelled to Georgia, a post-Soviet country that extradited him to the US. The charges include “conspiring against the United States, smuggling and violating the Arms Export Control Act.”

    Remember the time when we had T-Shirts with blowfish crypto on it to get it out of the Empire of Freedom?

    The Russian embassy in Washington suggested that Tishchenko might’ve been deliberately framed by the US authorities. “There are signs of provocation by the American special services,” the embassy said, vowing to provide any necessary consular assistance to protect the man’s legal rights.

  6. Thorfinnsson says

    Seems like something the British Empire would’ve done during its mid-19th century peak.

    A less aggressive and more likely form of retaliation is the tit-for-tat judicial kidnapping of some hapless American tourist or businessman in Russia for an equally ridiculous “crime”.

  7. There was a similar story with ARMA 3 developer and Greece, if memory serves. But that was between NATO slaves.

  8. “A less aggressive and more likely form of retaliation is the tit-for-tat judicial kidnapping of some hapless American tourist or businessman in Russia for an equally ridiculous “crime”.”

    That would only benefit the Americans as it would make the Russians look bad. Their media would ignore this incident and just attack the Russians. I would suggest the Russians perhaps provoke the Georgians, instead, by arresting one of their own. They should also ban that flight simulator game in Russia.

  9. reiner Tor says

    Americans might simply avoid Russia. Unlike the Butina case, this is not about an innocent Russian being framed while in the USA, rather it’s a case of no country in the world being safe for Russia any more, because most countries are vassals of the US one way or the other. A Russian response therefore cannot be entirely symmetrical, because they cannot have Mexico or the Dominican Republic arrest a random American for “conspiracy to buy a public domain document” or “conspiracy to influence the Russian election through English language comments on Facebook” (I’m trying to think of a more ridiculous charge than this one), so instead their answer has to be extremely forceful to discourage the practice of random countries arresting random Russians which are crimes neither in Russia nor in the country in question, and it’s even a stretch to say they would invariably be prosecuted even in the US.

    So I’d guess next time a Russian military force should rescue the arrested Russian citizen, either a full invasion force, or a smaller special forces detachment. (The latter is riskier.)

    Now I don’t know what might be an alternative way – reinstating the Russian embargo against Georgia? The idea is not really to punish the US, but to punish the small country and discourage them from arresting random Russians on trumped up charges. Certainly they should learn that arresting random Russians to extradite them to the US is inherently risky: it’s best not doing it.

  10. Georgians are disgusting people

  11. Mitleser says

    Issue travel warnings.

  12. Which would invite sanctions and give the US a reason to say the Montreux Convention is invalid (not that it has either right).

    A total ban on tourists to Georgia, and perhaps another embargo on its products should suffice. Russian money is still its bread and butter, no matter how much they scream “We Iz West”

  13. reiner Tor says

    How is this covered in Russian media? Do higher level government officials or famous anchors etc. comment on this topic?

    I’d expect at a minimum travel warnings to be issued against entering Georgia. A Russian can get into trouble in Georgia without breaking Georgian law!

  14. Budd Dwyer says
  15. Wow. Can this really be called a crime at all? The guy bought a manual for fuck’s sake.

  16. I guess this will go down like a stone with the pro American factions in Moscow. The ones who are always going on about how much more “freedom” there is in the West. This fool thought that he was safe in Georgia – a country that allows the Americans to try out biological weapons/vaccines on its own people. LOL

    Moscow Accuses U.S. of 73 Deaths at Biolab Near Southern Russia

    https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2018/10/05/moscow-accuses-us-73-deaths-biolab-near-southern-russia-a63094

  17. Mitleser says

    Citing the Russian Defense Ministry’s claim that the spread of viral diseases from Georgia – including African swine fever since 2007 – could be connected to the Lugar Center, Shamanov called for a “comprehensive evaluation.”

    Are they wrong?

    The cases now flaring up in Russia, Ukraine and other countries in the Caucasus have their origins in a 2007 outbreak in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where the virus gained a foothold after being imported from Africa. The disease quickly jumped to neighbouring Azerbaijan, Armenia and Chechnya, before fanning out across Russia.

    To the east, the disease has been detected on the doorstep of Kazakhstan, which shares a long border with China, home to more than 1 billion pigs. China also risks importing the virus through its growing trade with African nations.

    https://www.pig333.com/3tres3_common/art/pig333/6267/african-swine-fever_43561.gif
    https://www.pig333.com/latest_swine_news/russia-african-swine-fever_6267/

  18. Because of some stupid politics and alignments (which resulted in having extradition agreement with America) – you condemn a whole nationality?

  19. His forum account here
    https://forums.eagle.ru/member.php?u=2402

    He’s really an expert developer of flight simulation games.

  20. Republic says

    https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/05/18/596290/Iran-US-Masoud-Soleimani-stem-cell-jail-sanctions

    This is the story of an Iranian stem cell researcher who was arrested in the US for the violations of US sanctions on Iran.

  21. Republic says

    Russia has issued travel warnings since 2013
    \

    https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/03/world/europe/russia-issues-travel-warning-about-united-states.html

    “Warning for Russian citizens traveling internationally,” the Foreign Ministry bulletin said. “Recently, detentions of Russian citizens in various countries, at the request of American law enforcement, have become more frequent — with the goal of extradition and legal prosecution in the United States.”

    Citing examples in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Lithuania and Spain, the Foreign Ministry said, “Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.”

    Extradition has frequently been a contentious issue between Russia and the United States, but the disagreements have been particularly sharp in recent months over the case of Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who is wanted on criminal espionage charges but has been granted temporary asylum in Russia.

  22. Republic says

    He will make a plea bargain with the US government if he is lucky, so he would be facing at least 10 years, so he might accept a deal for 3-5 years.

    A recent case of a night goggle export case got a Russian 18 months in a federal prison

  23. reiner Tor says

    Yeah, but he traveled to the US. It’s a whole other ballpark to get arrested in a random small country.

  24. Mitleser says

    Looks like he deserved to be mocked by “Admiral Martyanov”.

    First: Dude, if you buy F-16, even if for earlier models, flight manuals you have to be already alert to the fact that those aircraft are still flying after upgrades and any combat ready equipment’s manuals are at best grey zone, at worst–don’t touch it. He did. But then the Darwin Award behavior begins;
    Second: He travels to Georgia (as in former USSR republic)–the “country” whose ass Russian Army handed to them in 2008 while Georgia remains vehemently Russophobic and tries to whore herself out to the United States. Guess what? He gets extradited to the US. Duh. But if that wasn’t enough, the imbecile does this;
    Third: Get this:
    “We need it in our work,” Tishchenko said, according to the affidavit. “I’d like to get some maintenance manuals for the F-16C related to avionics. Actually, maintenance manuals for any jets, including the A-10.” Curiously, it is claimed that Tishchenko “also informed [the agent] that he would like to acquire F-35 and F-22 flight manuals” while promising that they “would not be provided to any third persons, and I think even not shown to anyone in our company.”

    http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2019/05/darwin-award.html

  25. Endgame Napoleon says

    What media do you mean? The broadcast MSM has five topics: Russia, Trump’s personality, racism, sexism and xenophobia. It keeps themes simple, providing more family-friendly time. They alternate characters from time to time to freshen things up in case the audience ever notices this topics tunnel vision.

  26. Felix Keverich says

    So let me get this straight: you would oppose Russian invasion of the Ukraine if it meant the expansion of Russian borders, but you would “understand” if Russia launched a full scale invasion of Georgia to rescue some random hipster? You only like stupid wars, do you?

  27. reiner Tor says

    I like little wars (Georgia doesn’t have a military worth mentioning), with limited aims.

    Permanently occupying a large territory with a hostile population is something which is extremely costly and would poison the well for Russia itself. Russia hardly needs the territory, and if you are interested in growing the population by adding a hostile group, you could invite immigrants any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

    On the other hand, I hardly have a firm opinion on where the Russian-Ukrainian borders should be. I would also have a considerably weaker opposition to destroying the Ukrainian military capabilities and defense industry, and then pulling out of the country. However, permanent occupation is something I’m opposed to, as it’d be bad all around for all involved. I also don’t support ethnic cleansing and similar things, which you seem keen on. I wouldn’t care if you pushed the border out a little further, except I wouldn’t like the hysteria following it. One good thing about the 2008 war was how quickly the hysteria surrounding it died down. To a large extent because the war returned the status quo ante, and so it was easy to get used to it.

  28. Felix Keverich says

    I like little wars (Georgia doesn’t have a military worth mentioning), with limited aims.

    This just gets you all the international hysteria with no payoff. Cause the moment you pull out, Georgians will declare victory and revert back to their bad behavior.

  29. I think the main reason the hysteria surrounding the Georgian War died down so quickly was because events in the financial markets a month later pushed it off the front page.

    Cause the moment you pull out, Georgians will declare victory and revert back to their bad behavior.

    But that’s not what happened after 2008. Once the Georgians got slapped, they settled down and became much more pragmatic in their relations with Russia. You couldn’t buy Saperavi in Russia in 2007, but you can now.

  30. Peripatetic Commenter says

    which treats the entire world as its jurisdictional demesne

    FIFY.

    While many native English speakers over use the definite article, it is definitely needed here.