For several days now, a storm has been shaking Russian opposition circles, now scattered across several European countries, the United States, and other parts of the world. One could also call it a gigantic verbal joust, where mutual accusations fly, and passions run high.
This storm was triggered by the new film from FBK (the Anti-Corruption Foundation set up by Alexei Navalny), “Kidnap. Beat up. Set on Fire.” Who is trying to destroy Navalny’s team? released on YouTube on September 12 and already viewed 1.5 million times.
The story told in the film is worthy of a thriller. Let us first introduce the main character, Leonid Nevzlin, a wealthy businessman and Russian-Israeli public figure. In business, he has been the closest associate of Mikhail Khodorkovsky since the late 1980s, and was one of the main shareholders and executives of Menatep Bank and Yukos Oil Company. In 2003, at the beginning of the Yukos case, Nevzlin emigrated to Israel, where he obtained citizenship. He was convicted in absentia to life imprisonment by a Russian court for allegedly ordering the murders of several people in the interest of Yukos. The Israeli Supreme Court refused to extradite Nevzlin at Russia’s request, as the evidence presented by the Russian judiciary was purely coincidental and insufficiently substantiated. In 2016, Interpol removed the businessman from its wanted list.
Before he emigrated, Nevzlin was a prominent figure in Russia. He was a member of the upper house of the Russian Parliament from 2001 to 2003, served as president of the Russian Jewish Congress (2001-2003), and was known as a benefactor of several institutions. In Israel, Nevzlin continued his activities as an investor, owning 20% of Haaretz, considered the most influential newspaper in Israel. As a philanthropist, he supports academic studies of the Eastern European Jewish diaspora, the Museum of the Jewish People, and youth educational projects. He has also funded Russian opposition projects, including the Navalny LIVE channel, and is the main sponsor of the influential Telegram channel, Sota.
Moreover, Nevzlin holds more radical positions on the Russian invasion of Ukraine than Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Unlike much of the Russian opposition, he advocates for supporting Ukrainian armed forces and believes that Russian citizens bear significant responsibility for this war.
Now, let us turn to FBK’s film, which claims that Nevzlin ordered the brutal beating of one of FBK’s key leaders and Navalny’s long-time associate, Leonid Volkov, six months earlier in Vilnius, as well as an attack on the wife of economist Maxim Mironov, Alexandra Petratchkova, in Buenos Aires, and other actions against FBK and its figures. The filmmakers claim that Nevzlin’s original plan was to kidnap Volkov in Lithuania, take him to Russia, and hand him over to the FSB.
These highly charged revelations are based on a screengrab of the correspondence — spanning several months — between Nevzlin and Anatoly Blinov, a lawyer and former board member of Gazprom-Media, who, at the time, was living in Riga. According to this correspondence, Nevzlin ordered Blinov to find people to carry out these nefarious actions. According to FBK, the leadership received this screengrab from a highly dubious character, Andrei Matous, a known FSB agent and a “fixer” who specializes in resolving delicate situations for cash. Following a falling-out between Blinov and Nevzlin, the latter allegedly asked Matous to steal Blinov’s phone to erase the traces of the correspondence. Matous complied, but instead of handing over the phone to Nevzlin, he provided the screengrab to both FBK and RT, which joyfully commented on this scandal within the opposition. Meanwhile, FBK asked two well-known investigative journalists, Mikhail Maglov from Proekt and Agentstvo, and Christo Grozev from Der Spiegel and The Insider, to examine thousands of exchanges on Blinov’s phone, which reportedly is still with Matous, though he has cut off all contact with FBK after sending the screengrab by mail.
The two journalists focused primarily on the context of the correspondence, of which a quarter was related to FBK affairs. They confirmed the accuracy of much of the information contained in the entire exchange and assert that it is highly unlikely to be a forgery. To fabricate it, they argue, one would have had to reinvent Nevzlin’s entire life. However, without access to the original phone — Blinov’s device — they cannot assert with 100% certainty that the screengrab was not altered.
I fully understand the outrage of FBK’s leadership upon receiving this explosive dossier. However, I believe making this film was a huge mistake. Instead of immediately contacting Lithuanian police, who have been investigating the attack on Volkov for months, so that the judiciary of a democratic country could rule on the facts, they opted to make a sensational film under the justification provided by Maria Pevchikh, one of FBK’s key figures and the film’s presenter: if Nevzlin’s actions are not made public, this dangerous psychopath could kill us all.
In democratic regimes, the presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle of criminal law. Are we not aware that people have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment on the basis of a set of coincidental evidence, and that some have been exonerated, sometimes posthumously, sometimes after decades of wrongful incarceration?
The method used by FBK unfortunately reminds me of denunciatory articles published in the Soviet press before the arrest of the accused, to shape public opinion and provoke “righteous anger.” It also reminds me of the defamatory films produced by the NTV channel in the post-Soviet years: defamatory profiles of Putin’s political opponents. These films often preceded the arrests and trials of those profiled.
The film has divided Russian opposition. Some point the finger at Nevzlin, and behind him, Khodorkovsky; others vehemently defend both, accusing the FSB of provocation; and a few, more reasonable voices, urge everyone to wait for the Lithuanian judiciary’s verdict. This is also the position of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Rapporteur on Russian Democratic Forces, Eerik-Niiles Kross. Blinov, who was recently living in Poland, has just been arrested along with other unsavory characters, and will likely be extradited to Lithuania. This case will be resolved sooner or later, but in the meantime, the damage is done. The exiled opposition, which had little influence in Russian society even before this story, has now been further tarnished by the scandal. Their moral standing has plummeted.
During his lifetime, Alexei Navalny hoped that Russia would not miss the next historical turning point and would switch to a fair, democratic regime, and morph into a “beautiful Russia of the future.” This image increasingly resembles a mirage that is at risk of vanishing, as those meant to embody this future are consumed by internal power and money struggles. What a waste.
Born in Moscow, she has been living in France since 1984. After 25 years of working at RFI, she now devotes herself to writing. Her latest works include: Le Régiment immortel. La Guerre sacrée de Poutine, Premier Parallèle 2019; Traverser Tchernobyl Premier Parallèle, 2016.
