One August afternoon, a taxi pulled up to a hotel in Istanbul and a group of men got out, speaking Russian. They pulled five suitcases out of the car.
The cases were packed with equipment they had purchased in Austria. The goods were not particularly unique — professional electronics, for use in schools — but they were made by a western brand that had decided to boycott Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
“It was made to look as if it’s just for personal use . . . As if I’d bought it all for myself,” says Stanislav, who met the men at the hotel in Istanbul, took them out for dinner, and then flew home to Moscow with the cases.
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