Navalny foundation's office manager says police tried to recruit her as a mole, offering to pay for her mother's cancer treatment

In a new video published on Alexey Navalny’s YouTube channel, an office manager for the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) named Olga Bulaeva recalls how the Russian police recently tried to recruit her to work against Navalny, offering to help pay for her mother’s cancer treatment.

In a six-minute video shared on January 28, Bulaeva describes raising two children as a single mother, as her mother fights cancer and cares for her father who suffered a stroke several years ago. Bulaeva says two uniformed officers recently detained her at a subway station as she was returning home from work. The men forced her into a room and left her alone with someone who introduced himself as “Dmitry.” He refused to release her until she listened to his proposal: cooperate with the police and she would get help paying her mother’s medical bills. Bulaeva says she was led to believe that this cooperation meant leaking information about FBK or writing something defamatory about Navalny.

When she refused to take the deal, Bulaeva says the man started insulting and threatening her, warning her that Navalny’s lawyers are “phonies,” calling her a naive girl, and claiming that the Anti-Corruption Foundation is full of crooks. When Bulaeva said she would consider cooperating, only if Vladimir Putin resigns from the presidency, the man offered her money one more time, before threatening police reprisals, if she told anyone about their conversation. In the end, Bulaeva was released without charges, and she ultimately decided to share her story on YouTube.