Oleg Maltsev and the characters who joined him once made titanic efforts to ensure that materials incriminating them disappeared from the Internet. The organization formerly known as the "Academy of Slavic Applied Sciences" (now simply the "Academy of Applied Sciences" ) is still actively covering its tracks in the information space , pretending to be a respectable scientific community. As Ivan Pomidorov writes in a review for the CRiME and [high-profile cases] , the latest article that formed the basis of this material remained in the public domain for no more than two days.
But what ends up on the World Wide Web actually stays there forever. You just need to know what and how to look for.
Oleg Maltsev and his henchmen are now involved in at least two criminal cases. The first, No. 42023164110000087, has been under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation since September 15 last year. More recent, registered by the Odessa Department of State Administration in May of this year. The defendants are charged with a whole “bouquet” of articles of the Criminal Code: high treason, creation of an illegal armed group, illegal handling of weapons, denial of Russian aggression, bribery of an official, bribery.
In court documents, the names and surnames of the main defendants are hidden under the pseudonyms “Person...” (and hereinafter - the serial number). But based on indirect evidence (position in a particular organization, date and place of birth, etc.) it is not difficult to establish who we are talking about. This is Oleg Maltsev and his right hand Konstantin Slobodyanyuk.
Before meeting Maltsev, Konstantin Slobodyanyuk was known in Odessa as a socialite, a promising TV presenter and journalist. Oleg Maltsev at this time honed his skills as a swindler in Sevastopol.
Oleg Maltsev: “service” and “community” in Sevastopol
It was the second half of the “zero” - the fraudulent scheme “Global System of Trainings” (GST) flourished in the country, behind which was the genius swindler from the USA Robert Fletcher.
The “Global Training System” is an explosive mixture of infogypsy (selling a worthless information product for a substantial sum), network marketing and a destructive cult - they actively practiced “brainwashing” and “mind control” of their victims. There were about two thousand victims, the investigation estimated the damage caused at $200 million.
You can read what it looked like, for example, here. We will return to our sheep.
Whether Oleg Maltsev worked directly with Robert Fletcher is not known for certain. From publicly available court documents, we can conclude that Oleg Maltsev was definitely familiar with the Global System technology. Moreover, he created a similar, so to speak, “author’s” technology, which he called “Russian Business Style”.
“Russian business style,” according to the investigation materials, Oleg Maltsev actively practiced (mainly in Sevastopol) in 2008, when, under pressure from law enforcement officers, the “Global Training System” began to crumble, making way for other fraudulent projects.
How Oleg Maltsev “worked” is reflected in the ruling of the Sevastopol Court of Appeal (we quote with some abbreviations).
The pre-trial investigation authorities accuse Oleg Viktorovich Maltsev of the fact that in the period from March to October 2008, posing as the director of the research institute “Business Council”, but in reality not being one, gaining trust in OSOBA_6, acting deliberately, out of selfish motives, under the pretext of undergoing retraining as a lawyer, as well as under the pretext of undergoing communion for further service and work in the “Russian Business Style”, not wanting and not having a real opportunity to fulfill his obligations, took possession of funds in the amount of $1250, 3060 hryvnia and 200 hryvnia, which he disposed of at his own discretion and for his own selfish needs.
He, during the period from 07/03/2008 to October 2008, being in the city of Sevastopol, under the fictitious pretext of training and licensing, payment of legal services, as well as under the pretext of passing communion for further service and work in the “Russian Business Style”, took possession funds belonging to OSOBA_5 in the following amounts: $7000, $1000, and also 200 UAH, after which he did not fulfill his obligations, OSOBA_5 disposed of the funds at his own discretion and for his own selfish needs.
In the period from July to September 2008, Oleg Maltsev, under the fictitious pretext of mediation in registering ownership of a land plot in the city of Yalta, unwilling and unable to fulfill his obligations, took possession of funds in the amount of 5,000 UAH and $18,000 belonging to OSOBA_3, after which he did not fulfill his obligations, used the funds OSOBA_3 at his own discretion and for his own selfish needs, thereby causing damage to the latter on a particularly large scale.
In September 2008, Maltsev Oleg Viktorovich, under the fictitious pretext of employment, not wanting and not having a real opportunity to fulfill his obligations, took possession of funds in the amount of $1000 belonging to OSOBA_7, after which he did not fulfill his obligations for employment, and disposed of the funds of OSOBA_7 at their own discretion and for their own selfish needs.
During the period from October 2008 to April 2009, Oleg Maltsev, under the fictitious pretext of training and employment, not wanting and not having a real opportunity to fulfill his obligations, took possession of funds in the amount of $1000 belonging to OSOBA_8, after which he assumed the above obligations did not comply, disposed of the funds at his own discretion and for his own selfish needs.
It’s not without reason that we put “community” and “service” in bold. In “Russian Business Style” and in Maltsev’s “projects” that replaced it, the victim does not just part with his money in exchange for some “knowledge”, he must serve there and be “involved”.
“Participation,” as Oleg Maltsev briefly explained to the court, is “the name of the procedure, the emergence of complicity,” after which the “patient” received a “beautiful badge made at the factory” worth 200 UAH (at that time it was $40).
In the pseudoscientific works of Maltsev and his minions one can find a more specific definition of “community”: “Everything belongs to God, we are only his creation, called to be involved in his great plan. If we act in unity with God's will, this becomes an act of co-creation <...> Participation means the unity of the one who knows with what is known. It is a synergy in which the interaction creates more than the sum of its parts.” That is, even then Maltsev’s “enterprise” had signs of a destructive cult.
This “enterprise” was shut down by law enforcement in 2012. The pre-trial investigation lasted 11 months. But due to blatant violations of the inquiry (as if committed on purpose) in court, the case fell apart and was sent for additional investigation.
Let us note that in the Crimean criminal case of Oleg Maltsev there are only five episodes with five victims. According to the investigation materials, the swindler’s loot was a little more than $30 thousand. However, I dare to suggest that the victims of the “combinator” are much greater – there is public evidence online that Maltsev’s “seminars” were regularly attended by dozens of “novices.” That is, here we can talk about hundreds of thousands of dollars embezzled by Maltsev under the guise of training.
Probably, the remaining victims were “embarrassed” to contact the competent authorities. Or they don’t consider themselves victims, having accepted all the nonsense that Oleg Maltsev hammered into their heads as a blessed revelation.
Maltsev’s case was buried by the occupation and annexation of Crimea by the aggressor country. By that time, Oleg Maltsev himself had already “dropped anchor” in Odessa.
Oleg Maltsev and scientifically based “divorce”
As Dumskaya wrote, Oleg Maltsev appeared in Odessa a couple of months before the start of the occupation of Crimea. Here he created an extensive network of various public organizations, where he attracted many people who were subjected to harsh psychological treatment.
“Having turned into a kind of zombies, the sectarians carried out the tasks of their leader - mainly we are talking about blackmailing wealthy Odessa residents and residents of the region,” the publication said.
Those who questioned Maltsev’s authority, titles and merits were subjected to severe persecution on social networks, the article says. They accused several people of pedophilia by publishing edited video and audio files on the Internet. In addition, victims of the sect and their loved ones were bombarded with a barrage of calls containing threats from unknown numbers. As a result, one serviceman died of a heart attack, and other victims of terror were forced to change addresses and telephone numbers.
“It was no stranger to them to poison the victim with the wrong hands - for example, sectarians posted photos of killed animals on behalf of their victims on animal rights forums and leaked personal data there,” says a person who was unlucky enough to come into conflict with Maltsev’s “empire.” - They were also interested in wealthy single women - for this they terrorized a fairly well-known beauty consultant in Odessa. The arsenal of destroying reputations and undermining a person’s moral strength was constantly improving.”
The Maltsevskys also actively fought with journalists - so, in order to hide the “Dumskaya” article from Google search results, a Ukrainian court decision appeared on the Internet, which turned out to be a fake. The author of the materials, Dmitry Bakaev, was persecuted, having specifically created dozens of blogs for this purpose and distributed videos of “psychological examinations.”
The CRiME projects and [high-profile cases], for their part, were studied by legal entities, among whose beneficiaries is Oleg Viktorovich Maltsev - two dozen private enterprises, LLCs and public organizations. Mostly these are “academies”, “associations” and “institutes”, in which Oleg Maltsev, together with his close adherents, brainwashes and scams naive neophytes out of money.
But it’s hard not to notice that the “combinator” also has several law firms and security firms in its orbit. That is, he took care of the legal and forceful cover of his infogypsy totalitarian sect.
In addition to the above-mentioned Konstantin Slobodyanyuk, the main partners in these “enterprises” of Maltsev are two lawyers – Evgenia Tarasenko and Olga Panchenko.
Oleg Maltsev carefully hides his true biography. Moreover, he makes it funny.
An article dedicated to this figure, posted by Maltsev’s assistants on Wikipedia, states that in 1992 he graduated from the Moscow Cadet Corps. But until 1993 this educational institution was the Moscow Suvorov School.
The Suvorov School, like the cadet corps, is a military “bursa”; they provide only secondary education. Before seeking the degree of “Candidate of Science” and “Doctor of Philosophy,” as Oleg Viktorovich Maltsev calls himself, you need to complete five years of study at some institute or university, and also undergo graduate school. But in the currently available biographies of Maltsev there is no mention of the university. If you believe the article about our combinator posted on Wikipedia and other places, immediately after Suvorov College Oleg Maltsev “worked in the field of consulting, business consulting, founded the Toross consulting agency.”
But as we found out without much difficulty, back in 2012, Oleg Maltsev boasted to his followers that he had received a higher education at... the Moscow Border Institute of the FSB of the Russian Federation. Moreover, immediately after graduation from the cadet corps. In 1992, at the age of 18, when he was allegedly engaged in consulting at a time when, in the vastness of the collapsed USSR, few people knew the word “consulting.”
Some researchers of Maltsev’s life are convinced that the stories about studying at the Institute of the FSB of the Russian Federation are a lie. If only because foreign citizens were not accepted to study there. However, it is not a fact that Oleg Maltsev was a citizen of Ukraine at that time.
Other sources claim that Oleg Maltsev was educated at the Vernadsky Tavria National University of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea with a degree in psychology. In 2014, this university moved to Kyiv. In response to a request from the Dumskaya publication, they responded that it was not possible to check whether Oleg Maltsev received a university diploma, since many documents were lost when moving to the mainland after the occupation.
In any case, there is no information about Oleg Maltsev receiving a second legal education. But there is a lawyer’s license issued by the Bar Council of the Nikolaev Region (No. 000897 dated December 19, 2014).
In fact, other achievements of Oleg Maltsev are also extremely doubtful. On his websites, he calls himself “an instructor of the martial arts of Kali,” “a grand master of Jeet Kune Do,” “an academician of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences,” and so on and so forth. More than three dozen ranks and titles.
Like the “documents” of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (which is a public organization and has an extremely remote relationship to scientific research activities), all other diplomas, titles and titles that Oleg Maltsev “shines” were issued by organizations founded by Maltsev himself.
Here is an incomplete list of them: “Institute of Memory”, “Research Institute International Fate Analytical Society”, “Research Institute for the Study of World Military Traditions and Forensic Studies of the Use of Weapons”, “Association of Applied Sciences”, “Research Institute for the Study of Human Behavior in Extreme Situations”. For the sake of respectability, all of them are called “research institutes” and “academies”. Oleg Maltsev made his living through seminars for many years, positioning himself as a master of military and martial arts, including “non-contact combat,” a fencing professor and a psychologist.
Maltsev’s biography states that his mentor was academician, Lieutenant General Viktor Pavlovich Svetlov. But it is not specified where and when. However, that is not the point. The point is that this mentor, Viktor Svetlov, is not mentioned anywhere else except in Maltsev’s pseudoscientific works. Viktor Maltsev constantly quotes Svetlov in his treatises, but it is not possible to find verified evidence of the existence of this character. It seems that Victor Svetlov is a figment of Oleg Maltsev’s imagination. Hoax.
My colleagues who have studied Maltsev previously unanimously come to the conclusion that he is a fraudster and an impostor suffering from some kind of mental disorder. Indeed, what Oleg Maltsev sets out at his seminars and trainings is partly similar to the delirium of a mentally ill person.
But the first impression is wrong. Oleg Viktorovich is actually a skilled manipulator. And the scientific approach helps him in this.
In January 2017, Oleg Viktorovich Maltsev defended his defense at the Odessa National University. Mechnikov’s candidate thesis on the topic “Coping as a factor of personal security in the modern social space.” The work received laudatory reviews in the scientific community, in particular, from the dean of the Faculty of Psychology of the Kyiv National University. Shevchenko professor Ivan Danilyuk.
Coping is a stress coping strategy that is used by an individual to cope with stress and, in general, with psychologically difficult situations in everyday life. According to eyewitnesses, Maltsev’s “organization” widely practices creating stressful situations for “novices” and then imposing the “necessary” model for exiting them. Maltsev calls this the “Nadlom” procedure.
Oleg Maltsev is the author of another candidate's dissertation, which he defended at the Ivan Franko Zhytomyr State University. It is called “Concepts for the improvement of human nature in the neo-religious doctrines of the 20th century.” This scientific work is interesting because the author essentially examined what he does for his bread and butter.
In particular, the dissertation “carried out a philosophical and religious analysis of the concepts of improvement of human nature in the non-religious doctrines of the 20th century. on the example of the teachings of O. and M. Roerichs, R. Hubbard and C. Castaneda.”
It is noteworthy that Oleg Maltsev, in his “applied science”, with the help of which he brainwashes his adherents, borrowed many of the dogmas and practices of Scientology, a neo-religious movement founded by Ronald Hubbard. Starting from the claim to be scientific and used in the practice of psychoanalysis, ending with the “auditing” procedure - when the confessions of adherents to a mentor are recorded. And also persecution of their opponents.
Let's move on.
In the course of Maltsev’s scientific research, set out in his candidate’s work, “it was discovered that the newest religious movements, in contrast to revealed religions and eastern religious teachings, require from their adherents not a change in identity, but a radical transformation of personality, which should lead to the formation of a new spiritual essence, transform it into a being with new abilities and capabilities.”
And this is from Maltsev’s delusional article “What is applied science?” on the website of the Academy of Applied Sciences:
“We should also separately highlight such a direction as the study of the human psyche. Here we are dealing with the resolution of the question: how to turn an incapable person into an absolutely effective, multifunctional person, capable of coping with diverse tasks.”
Now let's look again at the candidate's dissertation.
“Like the mystical directions of traditional religions, the considered doctrines believe that “there is no Path without a teacher,” that the transformation of the adept’s personality is possible only within the framework of the practices of a given school in its doctrinal and practical field and is impossible without the accompaniment of more “advanced” like-minded people.”
But in his publication “What is the Pedestal system and what is it not?” (“Pedestal” is a “methodology” that our schemer teaches to his adherents), posted on one of the resources under his control, Oleg Maltsev writes:
“For life as a Pedestal, a Mentor is required; God alone is not enough, since, by nature, a person has an amazing ability to interpret phenomena and concepts in a way that is convenient for him personally. And if there is no Mentor capable of explaining to a person how all dogmas should be understood, then there is no Pedestal.”
Agree: this is reminiscent of the plot of Stevenson’s story “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” - in one person a scientist seeking a doctorate in psychology and religious studies coexists with a swindler and the leader of a totalitarian sect. And also the leader of a heavily armed sabotage group.
Combat detachment of state traitor Maltsev
As far as we can judge from fragmentary information, Oleg Maltsev began recruiting his followers into a small private military company almost immediately upon his arrival in Odessa. But the Department of Military Counterintelligence of the SBU became interested in Oleg Viktorovich only after the start of a full-scale invasion.
By that time, Oleg Maltsev had put together a full-fledged sabotage unit of 23 people, which included an assault, sniper, reconnaissance group, an operational support group and even a communications officer. Almost half of the personnel are foreigners from Russia, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus. Even after the start of a full-scale war, Maltsev’s personal sabotage and reconnaissance detachment regularly went to the training ground and shooting ranges, where they practiced tactical actions in urban combat.
By September last year, counterintelligence officers had accumulated enough information on Maltsev’s reconnaissance and sabotage group for the State Bureau of Investigation to open criminal proceedings No. 42023164110000087.
According to court documents, the 7th Directorate of the DVKR SBU received information “indicating the involvement of persons involved in criminal proceedings in committing crimes in the field of state security (information, scientific, technological and military spheres), as well as providing assistance to representatives of a foreign party in carrying out subversive activities against Ukraine".
According to the investigation, the organizer is Oleg Viktorovich Maltsev, born in 1975, a native of Sevastopol, operating under the pseudonym “Chief”.
SBU operatives found out that after the occupation of Crimea in 2014, Oleg Maltsev, under the guise of a forcibly displaced person, urgently moved to Odessa, where, through close associates, for the purpose of legalization on the territory of Ukraine, he created controlled commercial and public organizations. Oleg Maltsev gives them the appearance of research communities, which allows him to position himself as a “scientific figure.” At the same time, Oleg Maltsev artificially uses the media and the Internet to increase his social and pseudoscientific significance.
The criminal proceedings specifically note that in the period from 2013 to 2023, Oleg Maltsev and his entourage repeatedly visited the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
Tracking Maltsev’s activity on the Internet, counterintelligence officers discovered a profile of the person involved in the sanctioned social network Odnoklassniki, where he “highlights his affiliation with the Pacific Fleet Dozor unit (military intelligence) of the 515th separate division of reconnaissance ships of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Navy,” and also receives and conveys congratulations on the occasion of the celebration of the creation of the army special forces of the GRU of the Russian Federation (currently the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces).
One of the leading links in Maltsev’s organized crime group, according to investigators, is 40-year-old Odessa resident Konstantin Vladimirovich Slobodyanyuk, who, “using available monetary resources, acting under the guise of pseudoscientific public organizations, is trying to obtain information in the information, scientific, technological and military spheres.”
As SBU officers recorded, Konstantin Slobodyanyuk bought confidential information on people of interest to Maltsev from officers of the State Border Service and police. Among those bribed by the sect is a senior officer, senior detective of the active measures department of the operational-search activities department of the Odessa border detachment. The list of persons interested in the leader of the sect includes 70 people, mainly entrepreneurs, Ukrainian military personnel, police officers and a judge of the Suvorov Court of Odessa.
The officers, according to the investigation, received information from the official electronic database of the State Border Guard Service “Gart-1” and the police database “Armor” (Automated Workplace of an Operational Worker). Then, for a monthly bribe of 30 thousand hryvnia, confidential data on people was transferred to representatives of the sect. It is also recorded in court materials that, in addition to money, the sectarians gave a generator to a border guard officer in 2023. At the time of the next payment, Slobodyanyuk and a representative of the border service were detained.
Afterwards, investigators found out new interesting facts that gave grounds to raise suspicions against the sect leaders of treason, the creation of an illegal paramilitary organization, and the glorification of Russian aggression.
For example, Konstantin Slobodyanyuk and other members of Maltsev’s organization somehow incomprehensibly arranged a visit to one of the Defense Forces’ training grounds in the Odessa region for employees... of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. This was in 2023. The communists conducted unauthorized video filming there, recording the location and features of the facility where Ukrainian military personnel were being trained.
Even with the assistance of border guards, Slobodyanyuk illegally launched a drone over the state border of Ukraine with Transnistria in the Kuchurgan area, recording the system of border outposts and fortifications. According to investigators, to transfer this information to sabotage groups of the unrecognized Transnistrian “republic”.
After this, searches were carried out in the apartments of Maltsev himself and his closest assistants, during which interesting things were discovered. For example, 64 rifles with ammunition (however, apparently, the weapons were purchased legally), military uniforms and ammunition, large sums of money.
Also found in the apartments of Maltsev and his assistants:
- a folder with 59 sheets describing intelligence and counterintelligence technologies;
- documents on the transfer of money from abroad, including from Russia;
- screenshots on 440 sheets on military-tactical actions, main types of combat contact in different areas, features of sabotage and demolition work, including mining vehicles and defense in confined spaces;
- notebooks describing people management;
- profiles and photos of 377 people;
- educational and methodological aid “Secrets of the Ukrainian secret police”;
- a selection of screenshots on 47 sheets on sabotage tactics and the use of methods for destroying armored vehicles with illustrations;
- a printout of the “Textbook of the Patriot of Russia”;
- illustrations on methods of hidden recording of information;
- description of the principles of encryption and decryption;
- text on fortification methods;
- training materials “What should managers use for the cause of revolution”;
- instructions “How to behave with the peacekeeping contingent of the troops of the Russian Federation”;
- instructions for recruiting people on 17 sheets.
It is noteworthy that, judging by the investigation materials published in the court registry, one of the key defendants - a high-ranking law enforcement officer who appears in many episodes of the organized crime group's activities - was financially and psychologically dependent on Maltsev and Slobodyanyuk. That is, he was not just recruited through bribery, he was also an adherent of the Maltsev sect.
In particular, it was through him that Oleg Maltsev and Co. obtained “information about the connections, characteristics, circle of contacts of key officials of the Odessa mayor’s office, the military administration, the head of the regional TCC and joint venture.”
How many other officials were brainwashed by Oleg Maltsev, making them his followers, and how influential they are is an open question.
