Russia arrests Ilya Traber, the Leningrad beer-bar manager who became a Putin-backed oil tycoon among St. Petersburg’s crime bosses. Here’s his story.

Ilya Traber — an oil port owner in Ust-Luga with sprawling commercial interests, known by the nickname “the Antique Dealer” — was detained in St.

Petersburg on June 17.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, led the operation, and the country’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case in Moscow linked to his alleged role in the murder of Alexander Petrov, a lawmaker.

Traber’s business partner Vladimir Danilenko was also detained.

Investigators also searched the home of Gennady Petrov — no relation to the murder victim, despite the shared surname — in connection with the same case.

Journalists have long identified Nikolai Shamalov as one of Traber’s business associates; Shamalov’s son Kirill was once married to Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova.

The Traber-Putin relationship dates to the 1990s, when Putin oversaw Traber’s activities in his official capacity as deputy mayor of St.

Petersburg.

Meduza asked Denis Korotkov, a journalist at the Dossier Center who has spent years investigating St.

Petersburg’s criminal and business networks, what the public needs to know about Traber — and why his detention is such an extraordinary development. ...