Berezovsky's former security head explains how Russia managed to get secret CIA documents on Navalny

Sergei Sokolov, the former head of security for oligarch Boris Berezovsky, spoke to Meduza about how documents from the CIA and British intelligence services came to feature in a TV segment on channel Rossiya-1's “News of the Week” program.

The TV segment showed excerpts from an upcoming documentary, “The Browder Effect,” set to air Wednesday, April 13. The documentary apparently exposes Russian anti-corruption crusader Alexei Navalny's connections to the investment fund Hermitage Capital, previously run by William Browder. It also shows images of documents supposedly from the CIA and British intelligence.

An excerpt form “The Browder Effect” states that Russia managed to get the secret documents thanks to the confusion created by 2014 Ukrainian revolution and the efforts of Sergei Sokolov. Sokolov is shown saying from “this country of wild idiots… during this period” they took around 60 data servers. The TV segment does not give any further details.

Meduza spoke with Sergei Sokolov to find out more about the secret documents. Sokolov says that his security company took servers confiscated by the Ukrainian Intelligence Service out of Ukraine during the period from September to December 2014. Sokolov says he was able to access the confiscated servers owing to his connections to the CIA.

Sokolov mentioned only one company that had its servers and equipment confiscated by the Ukrainian Intelligence Service—news agency RBC-Ukraine.

In the September–December period mentioned by Sokolov, only one Ukrainian newspaper, Vesti, reported that servers being taken from Ukraine. RBC-Ukraine has said nothing about any of its servers going missing.