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Vladimir Putin has pardoned Diana Gribovskaya, the wife of Dmitriy Karavaichik, a convicted drug dealer recruited by the Wagner PMC, according to a report by Russian news outlet Rotonda. Gribovskaya was serving time in the same case as her husband – Karavaichik and Gribovskaya were convicted in 2019 to 17 and 16 years in prison respectively for the large-scale production and sale of amphetamine.
According to the court, Karavaichik was directly involved in the production of the drug, while Gribovskaya was in charge of sales. Karavaichik is known by the nickname “Russian Walter White,” after the main character in the AMC TV series Breaking Bad.
Karavaichik claims he went to war against Ukraine to help his wife. In an interview with Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, which he gave under the pseudonym “Dmitry Semyonov,” the man said: “I hope now I can somehow get her out too. I'd do anything for that.” Rotonda revealed that Gribovskaya was indeed able to walk free. The journalists found her on social network VK and attempted to contact her, but the woman had deleted her profile.
Rotonda was able to find her father Vladimir Gribovsky. He said that “both Dima and us” had asked for his daughter, which resulted in “a presidential pardon”:
“I went to the press when there was a trial. They promised and promised, but nothing got published. And when Karavaichik was released, they started writing that there was allegedly industrial production of drugs, although it was a typical provocation. The lawyers also only took money and took a formal approach [to the defence of their client]. But I don't want to give any details until Dmitry comes home. He returned and went back to the front.”