According to Bellingcat’s leading journalist on Russian affairs, Hristo Grozev, along with the Polish prosecutor’s office and counterintelligence, as well as the Lithuanian police, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation is also involved in the Newzlingate investigation. According to Grozev, the results of the investigation will provide convincing evidence that the allegations against Nevzlin by Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) are true. “When this happens, at least the confusion about whether it is true or not will disappear, and perhaps more people will begin to understand why Maria Pevchih and FBK decided to make such a statement, which was not an easy decision.” It should be noted that Grozev was directly involved in starting this international scandal, because it was he who determined the authenticity of Leonid Nevzlin’s correspondence with Anatoly Blinov.
Khodorkovsky is ready to “carry packages to prison”
The Newzling Gate scandal “exploded” on September 13, a day after FBK published a documentary film about the attack on Navalny’s associate Leonidas Volkov and its alleged mastermind. The correspondence published by FBK between former Russian oligarch Leonid Nevzlin, co-owner of the oil giant Yukos, and former Russian lawyer Anatoly Blinov contains evidence that Leonid Nevzlin may have ordered the attack on three representatives of the Russian opposition in exile – FBK leaders Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov and the Russian opposition to Aleksandra Petrachkova, wife of economist Maxim Mironov.
The attacks took place in Lithuania, Switzerland and Argentina. The attackers also followed Leonid Volkov in the United States and planned to attack him in New York, but failed. This could explain the FBI’s involvement in the investigation. During the investigation, the FBI linked Nevzlin’s activities to the public attacks on FBK by his senior Yukos partner, former Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and to the fact that they jointly own funds that finance their political projects.
Nevzlin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky deny the charges. However, Khodorkovsky said last Thursday that he found the evidence against Nevzlin credible, but that he did not believe it. He also expressed his readiness to “carry packages to prison” for Nevzlin, “Delfi” writes.
“Man from Riga”
The perpetrators of the crimes – two Polish citizens and one Belarusian citizen – were detained in Poland a month after the attack on Leonid Volkov (the attack took place in March of this year), and the day after the publication of the FBK report and the film, the organizer of the crime, Anatoly Blinov, was detained. According to the data of the Polish Prosecutor’s Office, a total of eight persons are involved in the case.
FBK information source Andrejs Matuss calls Anatolia Blinov a “man from Riga” and it was he who hired the thugs in Poland who attacked Volkov in Vilnius. The film also claims that Nevzlin, with the help of bribery, managed to initiate a criminal case in Latvia against the former executive director of FBK, Vladimir Ashurkov. This is discussed in the correspondence between Nevzlin and Blinov, which is at the disposal of FBK. Ashurkovs himself has also confirmed that in March he was called to the police as a witness in London, where he was interrogated by Latvian police investigators and a Riga district prosecutor together with British police officers.
The results of the FBK investigation can be found in more detail on the FBK website navalny.com.
False and discrediting information is used
Grozev is convinced that the Nevslingeita scandal threatens to spread: “There is evidence of corruption in many European countries, including Central Europe and Latvia. There is evidence of corruption in the media when, according to correspondence, the group colluded with media owners to publish false and discrediting information. Similar discussions are also taking place about Poland and Lithuania. I think these findings will have even more implications.”
FBK representative Maria Pevchih also claims in the film: “Along with how Nevzlin is actually trying to kill Volkov and destroy Navalny’s team, he and Blinov are carrying out some sort of separate sabotage against other oligarchs. They are trying to get Gusinski stripped of his Spanish citizenship, to publish some kind of kompromat about Aven and Friedman, to take away some of their shares. We leave all this wrangling between the oligarchs outside the parentheses. How one oligarch slaps another is absolutely not interesting to us.”
Meanwhile, based on part of the correspondence received from FBK, the Latvian television program “De Facto” reported which players of the Latvian media and public political scene were involved in these oligarch battles. It can be seen from the correspondence that Nevzlin is the main interested party “about Gusya and Aven”. As “De Facto” points out, the former Russian media magnate Vladimirs Gusinskis, who fled the country from Putin more than 20 years ago, and the billionaire Pyotr Avens, who obtained Latvian citizenship but was later subject to international sanctions, and has been living in Latvia lately, are obviously meant. .
“De Facto”, based on the correspondence, also reported that Leonid Nevzlins had bribed the creator of the website kompromat.lv, Leonid Yakobson, as well as the Russian émigré nationalist Dmitry Savvin. According to “De Facto”, Jákobsons and Savvins allegedly received 22,000 euros from the Lithuanian foundation “Cooperation for Democracy”, which belongs to Nevzlin. The money was transferred as a donation to the account of the company they founded, “Bonum Publicum”.
Jakobsons submitted a report to the police against the sanctioned Russian oligarch and Latvian citizen Petr Aven’s company “IDS Borjomi Europe” in Lithuania, and Savvins – in Latvia. Both accused him of violating the sanctions regime. They published their statements on social networks.
In a joint statement on the kompromat.lv website, Savvins and Jákobsons called FBK a “structure that consistently lobbies the interests of Putin’s oligarchs” and denied any connection with Blinov. According to them, the publications against P. Aven are “part of the national struggle against pro-Putinist elements”.
Pēteris Aven, on the other hand, will turn to the State Police with a request to start criminal proceedings against Savvina for intentionally spreading false fabrications and slanders. Lawyer Jānis Rozenbergs stated that, according to his client, the purpose of spreading such false fictions was most likely to achieve political and legal restrictions on Aven, not only in Latvia, but also in Europe and other countries.
2024-10-05 04:18:24