Support The Moscow Times!

Governor Defends Crusader Navalny

Kirov Governor Nikita Belykh said on his blog Friday that he has no complaints against lawyer and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, despite the fact that the latter is now being probed by the Investigative Committee.

Navalny, who is now in the United States on a fellowship with Yale University, is being investigated for allegedly causing more than 1 million rubles ($32,000) worth of damages to KirovLes, a state-owned timber company.

“Alexey, when working for the Kirov region, was a member of a working group to reorganize KirovLes and was dealing with the issue of increasing transparency in the timber industry,” the governor wrote on his blog, pointing out that Navalny was volunteering as his advisor and was not a government employee.

“Neither the Kirov regional office of the state unitary enterprise KirovLes, nor its founder — the government — has any issue with Alexei. We do have an issue, however, with the former director of KirovLes … whose testimony, according to the media, is what the case against Navalny is based on,” Belykh wrote.

The case concerns an accusation by Vyacheslav Opalyov, former director of KirovLes, a state-owned timber company now approaching bankruptcy — due in part, the governor says, to incompetent management by Opalyov.

According to Opalyov, Navalny had promised to aide him in securing profitable state contracts in exchange for a loss-making contract with a company called Vyatskaya Lesnaya Kompania, according to Internet portal The Marker.

A lawyer by trade, Navalny is a minority shareholder in many of the country’s biggest companies, including Transneft and VTB, and has been filing lawsuits against these companies in a crusade for increased transparency and better corporate governance. He even launched the web site Rospil.info to expose incidents of corruption.

Navalny sees Transneft, the state-owned pipeline company, as the force behind the sudden investigation of something that happened more than a year ago.

He wrote on his blog Friday that late last month, after writing a post about Transneft allegedly embezzling more than $4 billion during the construction of a pipeline connecting east Siberia and the Pacific, several of his clients were approached by people who were fishing for any “interesting information.”

Policemen hired by Trasneft could not come up with anything better than to reanimate a case from a year and a half ago, Navalny wrote.

A Transneft spokesman could not be reached on Sunday to confirm or deny the allegation.

The KirovLes accusation was “cooked up by policemen hired by VTB” right before the company's shareholder meeting, Navalny said.

In mid-November, Navalny wrote about “the drill-boring scheme,” claiming that VTB's subsidiary, VTB-Leasing, had embezzled a total of $156 million in a deal to purchase 30 drills from the Chinese Sichuan Honghua Petroleum Equipment Company.

A VTB spokesman could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Navalny admitted on his blog that his crusade may be harming his law practice because his clients are being harassed, but his enthusiasm does not seem to be waning.

“My dear thieves! It was obvious that you would come up with something like this, and I was prepared. I am not afraid, and I am coming back to you, my dear corrupt ones,” Navalny wrote.

“The case of Transneft (as well as the VTB, Gazprom and other cases) will go on even if tomorrow you launch a case due to my involvement in the stealing of the Golden Fleece, the Amber Room and President [Dmitry] Medvedev's iPad,” Navalny wrote.

Sign up for our free weekly newsletter

Our weekly newsletter contains a hand-picked selection of news, features, analysiss and more from The Moscow Times. You will receive it in your mailbox every Friday. Never miss the latest news from Russia. Preview
Subscribers agree to the Privacy Policy

A Message from The Moscow Times:

Dear readers,

We are facing unprecedented challenges. Russia's Prosecutor General's Office has designated The Moscow Times as an "undesirable" organization, criminalizing our work and putting our staff at risk of prosecution. This follows our earlier unjust labeling as a "foreign agent."

These actions are direct attempts to silence independent journalism in Russia. The authorities claim our work "discredits the decisions of the Russian leadership." We see things differently: we strive to provide accurate, unbiased reporting on Russia.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. But to continue our work, we need your help.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just $2. It's quick to set up, and every contribution makes a significant impact.

By supporting The Moscow Times, you're defending open, independent journalism in the face of repression. Thank you for standing with us.

Once
Monthly
Annual
Continue
paiment methods
Not ready to support today?
Remind me later.

Read more