Meduza’s daily newsletter: Thursday, September 12, 2024 Team Navalny accuses former Yukos exec of ordering attacks on oppositionists, TIFF pulls controversial documentary amid threats, and Florida jury convicts four of conspiracy to act as Russian agents

Team Navalny accuses former Yukos executive Leonid Nevzlin of ordering attacks against exiled Russian opposition figures

Activists at the Anti-Corruption Foundation and a handful of journalists recruited to verify their findings have published evidence that billionaire former Yukos top executive Leonid Nevzlin hired thugs to attack three anti-Kremlin opposition figures and possibly try to kidnap one to hand over to Russian federal agents. Like his apparent enemies among Alexey Navalny’s old entourage, Nevzlin is a fugitive from the Russian authorities. He fled the country more than two decades ago when state investigators launched a sweeping criminal case against the oil company Yukos. In 2008, a Russian court sentenced Nevzlin in absentia to life imprisonment on charges of organizing five murders, five assassination attempts, and an armed robbery. To this day, he remains close friends with Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Who were Nevzlin’s alleged targets?

Former Anti-Corruption Foundation board chairman Leonid Volkov in Vilnius, foundation director Ivan Zhdanov in Geneva, and Alexandra Petrachkova (the wife of economist Maxim Mironov) in Argentina.

What’s the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s source?

The foundation reportedly received an email sent to its general inbox proposing a conversation about the March 2024 attack on Volkov outside his home in Vilnius by an assailant who sprayed him with mace and beat him with a hammer, breaking one of Volkov’s arms and bruising his legs. The inquiry came from a man who identified himself as Andrey Matus, whom the foundation describes as a “fixer” who uses his connections to law enforcement to “fix problems” for money. Matus claimed that Mikhail Khodorkovsky employed him as an informant for the past three years.

At a face-to-face meeting in Montenegro, Matus later gave Leonid Volkov and Ivan Zhdanov records of his alleged correspondence with Nevzlin, where they discussed details of the hired attacks never released to the public (Nevzlin and Matus apparently even shared videos of the assaults of Zhdanov and Petrachkova that were never published anywhere). Investigative journalists Mikhail Maglov and Christo Grozev studied the writing style, personal information, screen names, screenshots, and hyperlinks present in these messages and confirmed their authenticity. 

The Volkov attack plan

In the correspondence provided to Volkov and Zhdanov, the person presumed to be Leonid Nevzlin orders the attack on Volkov through someone whose personal data in the messages suggest he is an attorney named Anatoly Blinov. According to journalists at Agentstvo Media, Blinov once served on Gazprom-Media’s board of directors and now lives in Poland. 

The initial plan for Volkov was even more outrageous than the hammer assault that ultimately took place. The correspondence apparently between Nevzlin and Blinov describes a scheme to kidnap Volkov in Lithuania and transport him to Russia by boat to hand him over to the Federal Security Service. In numerous messages in October 2023, the man hired to organize the scheme refers to Volkov as “the package.” He asked for 12,000 euros ($13,300) to rent two boats in Riga and fuel them for the journey, plus an unspecified labor fee. The same man tracked Volkov to the United States in November 2023, also planning to abduct the opposition figure in a manner that would land Volkov “in a wheelchair.” During the New York City visit, however, the assailants couldn’t find a good moment to pounce. Volkov returned to Lithuania and was finally jumped outside his home, the following March.

According to what Andrey Matus told Volkov and Zhdanov in Montenegro, Nevzlin was unhappy with the attack on Volkov and refused to pay the negotiated $250,000 fee. “I could have fucked him up that badly myself. I needed him to be teasing the birds [through his cell bars] for the rest of his life, but you left him with just a couple of bruises,” Nevzlin allegedly complained. Matus said the disagreement over money led to a falling-out between Nevzlin and Blinov, at which point Nevzlin instructed Matus to take back the phones issued to Blinov and his associates to coordinate the attack on Volkov.

How Russia Today fits into the story

Roughly a week before the Anti-Corruption Foundation and its media partners revealed their findings about Leonid Nevzlin, the Russian state propaganda outlet RT published the same correspondence shared with the foundation by Andrey Matus. Russia Today claimed that it received the messages from a certain “source in the opposition” based in Lithuania. RT’s source claimed that he got the records from Anatoly Blinov, who supposedly “fears for his life” due to threats from Nevzlin’s associates.

Activists at the Anti-Corruption Foundation say they never understood why Matus came to them with the evidence against Nevzlin. After meeting with Volkov and Zhdanov, Matus promised to send them audio recordings of his calls with Nevzlin, but he suddenly stopped communicating with the foundation’s team. “He quickly realized that selling all these materials to us wouldn’t work. We simply don’t have the money he wanted,” the Anti-Corruption Foundation wrote in its investigation. 

Nevzlin denies all allegations that he hired anyone to attack Volkov, Zhdanov, or Petrachkova. He calls the charges “absurd” and says his accusers are knowingly spreading Kremlin propaganda that first appeared on RT. Nevzlin’s longtime friend and former Yukos colleague Mikhail Khodorkovsky has criticized the Anti-Corruption Foundation for trying to “tarnish” his reputation by insinuating connections to Nevzlin’s alleged actions. “Either it’s true, and in that case, Leonid Nevzlin has lost his mind. Or it’s an FSB provocation and a fake, on which a lot of money was spent,” Khodorkovsky wrote on Telegram, describing the allegations against his friend as “based on information published by Russia Today.”

We got The Beet. Don’t miss Meduza’s weekly newsletter (separate from the one you’re reading here)!

The Naked Pravda: Iranian ballistic missiles have entered the Ukraine War chat

The Pentagon says it’s confirmed that Iran has given “a number of close-range ballistic missiles to Russia.” While Washington isn’t sure exactly how many rockets are being handed over to Moscow, the U.S. Defense Department assesses that Russia could begin putting them to use within a few weeks, “leading to the deaths of even more Ukrainian civilians.”

To find out where the Russian-Iranian partnership is headed and what, if anything, changes in the Ukraine War with Tehran sending ballistic missiles to Moscow, The Naked Pravda spoke to Dr. Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an associate researcher with the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

This podcast episode demands 23 minutes of your precious time. 

Meduza’s feature reporting

• 📺 The Russian authorities slowed YouTube speeds to near unusable levels — so why are Kremlin critics getting more views?

The news in brief

• ⚖️🇺🇸 Jury in Florida convicts four Americans involved in African Socialist Party activism of conspiracy to act as agents of the Russian government, accepting money and instructions from Moscow-based Anti-Globalization Movement leader Alexander Ionov interfacing for the FSB
• 🕵️🇬🇧 Russia expels six British diplomats for alleged espionage (“intelligence-gathering and subversive activities”)
• 📺🇵🇱🇧🇾 Russian Prosecutor General bans Belsat — a Polish television channel aimed at Belarus — as an “undesirable organization” for criticizing “integration processes within the Union State”
• 📽️🇨🇦 Citing “significant threats to festival operations and public safety,” Toronto International Film Festival organizers pause future screenings of Russians at War, which has drawn intense criticism for perpetuating Kremlin propaganda
• 🔍 Following last month’s meeting with Putin, advocacy group for parents of children among hostages in 2004 Beslan school siege says Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee head has ordered officials to restart their investigation “almost from scratch” after failing to close the case in more than two decades
• 🤺 Vladimir Putin says Moscow will view Ukraine using Western long-range missiles to strike Russian territory as NATO’s “direct participation” in the war and change the conflict’s “very essence”
• 🛂 Russia’s Internal Affairs Ministry issues arrest warrants for seven foreign journalists who crossed without authorization into the Kursk region to report on Ukraine’s incursion

No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Donate here.