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Banned ‘Crimea schemer’ took holiday in Sweden

A Tupac-loving top aide to Vladimir Putin was in Sweden at the time an EU travel ban against him was announced, border police have confirmed.

Published: 27 March 2014 10:54 CET
Banned 'Crimea schemer' took holiday in Sweden
Vladislav Surkov poses for a picture with his wife Natalia Dubovitskaya at Millesgården sculpture garden. Photo: Dubovitskaya's Instagram account
Vladislav Surkov was on holiday in Sweden as recently as Sunday. The trip was recorded on his wife's Instagram account, which shows the pair at Stockholm's popular tourist attractions including Millesgården sculpture garden. 
 
The EU slapped a travel ban on the Russian on Friday March 21st, meaning he is not allowed to travel anywhere within the European Union.
 
"I can confirm that he has been in Sweden and that he came in before the sanctions were announced. Exactly when we do not know," Stockholm border police spokesman Kent Söderlund told The Local. 

 
"I know that he left on March 23rd. He left from Arlanda airport. He passed our border but I don't know his destination. He must have left the EU, otherwise the travel ban would have shown up in border checks."

 
The holiday pictures on Instagram were uploaded between March 20th and 23rd. 
 
Isabelle Sundström, a spokeswoman at the Foreign Ministry, said the ministry was unsure why the Russian was in Stockholm, and that further details remain unclear.
 
"We have no information to indicate that he entered the country after the sanctions took effect," she told The Local. "We have not had any contact with the Russian embassy."
 
The chief of Stockholm's border police, Peter Nilsson, earlier said he had no record of Surkov entering Sweden via Stockholm.
 
And if Surkov left after the ban was announced, "then he was going the right way," he told The Local. 
 
Surkov made headlines worldwide last week for his comments after the White House also placed sanctions on him and six other Russian officials.
 
He told a Russian newspaper that it was a "big honour" to be on the US list.
 
"The only things that interest me in the US are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work. I lose nothing," he quipped.
 
Surkov is credited with having created the vast pro-Putin Nashi youth movement and devising the political system known as sovereign democracy that has allowed Vladimir Putin to flourish. A long-serving influential aide to the President, he served as deputy prime minister from December 2011 to May 2013.
 
Surkov, nicknamed the "grey cardinal", is thought to have fallen out of favour with Putin before the Ukraine crisis, but reports suggest he was then brought back into the inner circle and served as a central figure in plotting the annexation of Crimea. 
 
Oliver Gee/Paul O'Mahony

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CRIME

How the fine you get in Sweden might be based on your income

There are two main types of fines that you could be given in Sweden: fixed fines which have a set value and fines which vary in value depending on your income. Here’s how they work.

Published: 23 April 2024 14:53 CEST
How the fine you get in Sweden might be based on your income

How do fines work in Sweden?

The two most common types of fine are penningböter (a fixed amount of money) and dagsböter (which vary depending on your income and the severity of the crime committed).

There is a third type of fine, normerade böter, which are rare. These are usually calculated based on some aspect of the crime committed – like the value of an item stolen or damaged, or the horsepower of a motor involved in the crime, for example.

Who can issue these fines?

Fines in Sweden can be issued by four different authorities: the courts, the police, customs and the coast guard. 

Things like parking fines, fines for using public transport and library fines do also exist, but, legally speaking, they’re technically fees – kontrollavgifter or straffavgifter, rather than fines – böter. This is important, as true fines will leave you with a mark on your criminal record, while fees do not (although if you don’t pay them you may be issued with a black mark on your credit record).

Police and customs issue a type of penningböter (fixed fines) which are known as ordningsböter. If you’re given one of these fines and you admit to the crime straight away, then you essentially skip going through the courts and your fine is issued directly by the police instead of being issued by a judge in court. 

Ordningsböter can be issued for things like not being able to present your drivers licence or other ID when you’re driving a car (500 kronor), not having insurance on your moped (500 kronor), or antisocial behaviour in public spaces through, for example, urinating (800 kronor) or playing loud music (1,000 kronor).

As a general rule, fixed fines are issued for less serious crimes. They can vary in size from a minimum of 200 kronor to a maximum of 4,000 kronor per crime, while the maximum amount which can be issued at one time for multiple crimes is 10,000 kronor. These fines vary in size depending on the severity of the crime rather than the income of the person who has committed it.

Income-based fines or dagsböter (literally: “daily fines”) are issued for more serious crimes, like grievous bodily harm, theft, animal abuse, damage to property or taking pictures of classified buildings, so you’re not going to be issued one just for driving slightly over the speed limit.

How are dagsböter calculated?

They’re made up of two numbers. The first is the amount of fines issued, which varies depending on the severity of the crime (between 30 and 150, or 200 if they are being sentenced to fines for multiple crimes at once), and the second is the value of each fine, which depends on the income of the person charged, but must be between 50 and 1,000 kronor.

This means that the lowest possible daily fine is 30 fines of 50 kronor each, or 1,500 kronor, while the highest is 200 fines of 1,000 kronor each, or 200,000 kronor.

As a general rule, one daily fine is meant to be equivalent to one thousandth of the yearly income of the person charged, taking into account other aspects of their personal finances like debts, savings and anyone else they have to support financially. This means that two people committing the same crime can be sentenced to different fines.

Let’s say two people get in a fight and are sentenced to 80 daily fines each. The first one has no income, so their fine value is set at the minimum (50 kronor per daily fine) meaning they pay a total of 4,000 kronor. The other has a high yearly income, so their daily fine is set to 500 kronor, putting their total fine at 40,000 kronor, despite being sentenced for exactly the same crime.

Despite the name, daily fines are not paid by day, but they’re paid as a lump sum within 30 days from the date at which the sentence becomes legally binding. If the perpetrator of a fine refuses to pay, their fine will be passed on to the Enforcement Agency (Kronofogden), who have the power to seize and sell their assets to cover it.

If they refuse to pay the fine despite being financially able to, they can be sentenced to prison for anywhere between two weeks to three months.

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