Original Izvestia article
Well, the original Izvestia article actually gives the correct RUB486K quote, not millions (may have been corrected after The Reg's piece was published, but unlikely, IMHO), and discusses at length the fact that various security organizations still use typewriters, listing various use cases. There is also a bit of discussion about the security and other risks of using paper only documentation.
It does quote an unnamed source as saying that after Snowden a decision has been made to "expand the practice of creating paper documents".
All in all, sounds like a non-story, and Vulture South's investigative effort, while generally commendable, could be short-circuited by asking the same Russian-speaking friend to read and translate the Izvestia article. The Google translation is lousy (and, inexplicably, gives the price in millions!), but could still be parsed well enough to get the major points.
-- A Russian-speaking friend