A Moscow court on Thursday sentenced a controversial businessman, his ex-senator brother, and several other executives to lengthy prison sentences over a criminal conspiracy to embezzle billions of rubles from the government budget. One of the flagship projects the conspirators were involved in was a stadium in Kaliningrad for the 2018 World Cup.

Among the nine instances of embezzlement involved were construction projects in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, including the Baltika stadium built for the World Cup hosted in Russia four years ago.

“a symbiosis of lies and absurdity.”