Businessman Leonid Nevzlin has responded to the ACF investigation into his involvement in attacks on associates of opposition politician Alexei Navalny by saying that he sees little point in discussing the details of the “concocted leak” in Moscow.
“Let an independent investigation and, if the investigation deems it necessary, a court in a democratic country assess these so-called ‘materials’ first. I am convinced that justice will confirm the absurdity and complete untenability of the accusations against me,” Nevzlin said in a statement on social media.
An investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, released on September 12, claims that Leonid Nevzlin, one of the former Yukos executives and a public figure, could have organized the attack on Alexei Navalny’s associate Leonid Volkov in March this year. The investigation, citing a source, says that Nevzlin organized and paid for the attack not only on Volkov, but also on ACF director Ivan Zhdanov and the wife of economist Maksim Mironov, who participated in the development of Navalny’s presidential program in 2018.
The ACF claims that Nevzlin allegedly formulated his order in such a way that the assassination attempt would end with Volkov being disabled and handed over to the Russian security services.
According to the source, Navalny’s associate was to be “beaten with hammers” and kidnapped and taken to Russia. As proof, the interlocutor provided the ACF team with videos taken by participants in the attacks on Zhdanov in Geneva and Mironov’s wife Aleksandra Petrachkova in Argentina on September 1, 2023, as well as correspondence in which a person recorded as Leonid Nevzlin discusses with a “contractor” the attack on Leonid Volkov.
Investigators compared these messages to those Nevzlin sent to the current head of the international ACF, Maria Pevchikh. “Nevzlin writes in a very specific and recognizable style. <…> This style can be seen in the records sent to us,” the investigation says.
The correspondence was investigated in parallel with the ACF by Mikhail Maglov, a journalist from Project and The Agency, and Hristo Grozev, an investigative journalist for Der Spiegel and The Insider. The Agency writes that the analysis proved the reliability of the correspondence.
The correspondence was analyzed in parallel with FBC by Mikhail Maglov, a journalist from Project and Agency, and Hristo Grozev, an investigative journalist from Der Spiegel and The Insider. The publication “Agency” writes that the analysis proved the authenticity of the correspondence.
Former Yukos head Mikhail Khodorkovsky commented on the ACF material, which, according to him, “sounded either hints or accusations” in his personal address. He said he considered the attacks on Volkov, Zhdanov and Petrachkova to be “heinous crimes.” “If the ACF wish to provably accuse me of something, they can go to court. And not slyly shit on my reputation,” Khodorkovsky wrote, noting that he knew nothing about the attacks other than what was published in open sources.
Khodorkovsky called Leonid Nevzlin his “longtime business partner, associate and friend” in the commentary, noting that the accusations against him were made on the basis of information published by RT. “Two assumptions can be made here. Either this is true and then Leonid Nevzlin has gone mad. Or it’s an FSS provocation and a fake on which a lot of money has been spent. We have seen such provocations many times, for example, in the Magnitsky case,” Khodorkovsky writes.
The accusation that it was Leonid Nevzlin who ordered the attack on Volkov was first made by the Russian propaganda channel RT on September 6, 2024, Sever.Realii notes.
