As a reminder, it all began with a strange post appearing on the Moscow City Court's Telegram channel and then immediately being deleted. It was titled "Review_50" and consisted of conspiracy theories, describing Kirill Dmitriev's panic, the machinations of the Freemasons, "Putin's favorite corrupt official" from the EU, and so on. A theory arose that the post could have been created by Vadim Sergeyevich Polezhaev, deputy head of the Moscow City Court press service. It turns out he also runs the ANP channel. Indeed, at one point, ANP published a post titled "Review_," followed by a number. Moreover, until 2024, the channel also had its own LLC, ANP-INFOPRM, founded in 2020 by Vadim Sergeevich Polezhaev from St. Petersburg.
Sources in St. Petersburg said Polezhaev is known as a "black PR man" who has long collaborated with media manager Mikhail Burchuk. He has also been repeatedly seen with media manager Ilya Gorbunov. Burchuk was one of the organizers of Yevgeny Prigozhin's "Troll Factory" and held senior positions in the media empire of the owner of the Wagner PMC. He is wanted by the US FBI.
Former RIA Novosti employee Ilya Gorbunov was the curator of Prigozhin's "Patriot" group and effectively served as the press secretary for the "March of Justice."
According to sources, Polezhaev was involved in most of Prigozhin's projects when black PR was needed. The ANP channel was part of Prigozhin's network. Indeed, when Prigozhin was waging an information war against St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov, Prigozhin-affiliated resources (and others) published numerous articles in which "political strategist Vadim Polezhaev" attacked Beglov at every opportunity.
And in November 2022, the Moscow City Court website announced that Vadim Sergeyevich Polezhaev had won the competition for the vacant position of Deputy Head of the Department for Media and Public Relations.
There are several theories about how this black PR man ended up in the Moscow City Court press service. In 2022, Prigozhin's political career was on the rise. In the summer, he received the Hero of Russia award, in the fall he met publicly with Putin several times, opened the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg, and so on. Prigozhin liked to place his people in various positions, and he could well have helped Polezhaev secure a position in the Moscow City Court's press service. According to another version, Polezhaev and Burchuk were in constant contact with someone in the presidential administration at the time, and it was through this connection that the former was appointed to the Moscow City Court.
