A close ally of Alexei Navalny resigned from his position at the opposition's Anti-Corruption Foundation ACF after he revealed he had signed letters calling for the EU to drop sanctions against several UK-based Russian billionaire oligarchs.
Leonid Volkov had signed and sent a letter to Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, in a letter he sent to him in 2022, calling 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.
Volkov wrote on Thursday that the letter was a big political mistake, and he uploaded it to Borrell in October 2022. By doing this, I exceeded my authority by not signing it in my personal capacity, but on behalf of the organisation. I did not inform my colleagues, and I put them on the letter Volkov said he would resign from ACF International s board, and take a break from public socio-political activity. The organisation has published a list of 6,000 bribetakers and warmongers that 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 showing Volkov's signature among several prominent Kremlin critics who stated that it is unreasonable to impose sanctions against the shareholders of Alfa Group, including Fridman, Aven and their business partners.
The letter continued to state that the company's managers had always emphasised their political non-engagement and 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 example of an objective individual approach to sanctions.
Aven was one of the earliest Russian oligarchs to be referred to as a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin's inner circle Aven and Fridman, as well as dozens of other Russian oligarchs, according to EU documents last February calling him one of Vladimir Putin's closest oligarchs. Aven and Fridman have been put on the UK's sanctions list.
Other prominent Russian oligarchs and businesspeople who have been issued with sanctions from the EU have 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 a letter shortly after the Anti-Corruption Foundation 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 was 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, to colleagues in 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 to try to trample on Navalny, who has been held illegally in prison for more than two years.