A close ally of Alexei Navalny has resigned his post at the opposition leader’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) after it was revealed that he had signed letters calling for the EU to drop sanctions against several UK-based Russian billionaire oligarchs.
Leonid Volkov confirmed he had signed and sent a 2022 letter to Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, in which he called for Brussels to relax sanctions on Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and business partners German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev, in a scandal marked by infighting among Russia’s contentious liberal and opposition circles.
“This letter was a big political mistake,” wrote Volkov in a post on Thursday where he uploaded the October 2022 letter to Borrell. “Worse, by doing this, I exceeded my authority – I signed it not in my personal capacity, but on behalf of the organisation. I did not inform my colleagues, and, therefore, I also put them [on the letter].”
Volkov said he would resign from ACF International’s board and “take a break from my public socio-political activity”. The organisation had earlier published a list of 6,000 “bribetakers and warmongers” it said should be issued with sanctions by western countries.
The admission came after Alexei Venediktov, the former editor-in-chief of the Echo of Moscow radio station, posted another letter that showed Volkov’s signature among several other prominent Kremlin critics, who stated that “we are of the opinion that it is unreasonable to impose sanctions against the shareholders of Alfa Group”, including Fridman, Aven, and their business partners.
The letter went on to say that the company’s managers had “always emphasised their political non-engagement” and also mentioned Fridman’s friendship with the late Boris Nemtsov, a liberal politician who was gunned down outside the Kremlin in 2015.
“If the sanctions are cancelled, we believe that such a decision by the European Union would serve as an excellent example of an objective individual approach to sanctions,” it read.
EU documents announcing the sanctions last February called Aven “one of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs” and stated that Fridman “has managed to cultivate strong ties to the administration of Vladimir Putin, and has been referred to as a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin’s inner circle”.
Aven and Fridman, along with dozens of other Russian oligarchs, have challenged the sanctions in EU courts, describing them as “spurious and unfounded”, as have dozens of other Russian oligarchs. Aven and Fridman have also been put on the sanctions list by the UK.
Other prominent Russian oligarchs and businesspeople issued with sanctions by the EU have also sought references from liberal Russian politicians and Kremlin critics in an effort to bolster their cases to reverse EU, US, and UK sanctions.
Venediktov published the letter shortly after the Anti-Corruption Foundation had published its own investigation showing that he and several other prominent Russian publicists had received money from a fund linked to the Moscow mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. Venediktov confirmed that information as accurate but said he had not earned any profit.
Volkov wrote: “I want to apologise to everyone whose trust I did not justify – first of all, of course, to colleagues in the governing bodies of the FBK, to supporters and, of course, to Alexei Navalny.
“It is painful to see how this whole story is being used by Putin’s friends of all stripes in order to try to trample on Navalny, who has been held illegally in prison in torturous conditions for more than two years.”
