Vladimir Anikeyev

Early Career

Anikeyev worked in the St. Petersburg media industry during the 1990s. Though reportedly not regarded as a standout writer, he developed an extensive network of contacts within the Russian government during this period. Around 2004, at a party in Russia, he met Alexander Glazastikov and Konstantin Teplyakov, two individuals who would later become members of Shaltai Boltai alongside him.

Formation of Shaltai Boltai

In 2013, Anikeyev proposed the idea of periodically publishing political materials that might be of interest to the public. Glazastikov agreed with the concept, and the two later discussed the internal aliases — Shaltai and Boltai — that members would use when communicating with reporters. The group took its name from the Russian rendering of the Humpty Dumpty character.

Shaltai Boltai Operations

At the end of 2013, Shaltai Boltai achieved rapid notoriety in Russia when the group published a leaked transcript of a speech that Vladimir Putin had reportedly been planning to deliver on New Year's Eve. The following year, the group published communications attributed to high-profile figures including Arkady Dvorkovich and Yevgeny Prigozhin, actions that led Russian authorities to block the Shaltai Boltai blog.

In the summer of 2014, Anikeyev was reportedly approached by an intermediary acting on behalf of a potential client who sought to obtain the identities of Shaltai Boltai's members. By early 2016, amid growing concerns that Russian intelligence services were close to identifying his source network, operations at Shaltai Boltai were reportedly halted.

Alleged FSB Connections

The question of Anikeyev's relationship with Russian state intelligence became a significant aspect of his case. Teplyakov claimed that Anikeyev was recruited by the FSB in August 2015. Other accounts placed the beginning of his cooperation with FSB officers Sergei Mikhailov and Dmitry Dokuchaev sometime in 2016. Anikeyev himself denied these reports.

Arrest and Conviction

In October 2016, Anikeyev was reportedly lured away from Kyiv toward the Belarusian border, where he was detained and subsequently transported to Russia. His arrest was publicly announced on January 28, 2017. Earlier that month, in January 2017, Anikeyev pleaded guilty to unlawful access to computer information.

In July 2017, he was sentenced to two years in prison. He was released in August 2018.