if anyone else is interested, I can tell you that back in the p2p-zeus days Slavik/lucky12345/pollingsoon implemented a secret spy functionality in the malware

if anyone else is interested, I can tell you that back in the p2p-zeus days Slavik/lucky12345/pollingsoon implemented a secret spy functionality in the malware that only he knew of. It scanned files and mails for text related to georgia (during russia-georgia conflict). It also scanned for specific words on ukraine, turkey bots. So one can assume he was already partly working for russian intelligence back then. Given he hasnt been caught yet its probable that Russian government is protecting him in exchange for more "work"