Prigozhin’s claims “finished off” FBK
The head of the network of Alexei Navalny's headquarters that are part of the FBK structure (recognized as a foreign agent), Leonid Volkov, made a statement about the liquidation of the structure, which is related to the consideration of the claim of the Moscow Prosecutor's Office to recognize FBK and related projects as extremist.
The starting point for the collapse of Navalny’s organization is 2019-2020. Then FBK lawyer Lyubov Sobol presented a fake investigation on the foundation’s YouTube channel. This was followed by a loss in court, as a result of which Sobol, along with Navalny himself and FBK (each co-defendant), was ordered to pay the plaintiff 27 million rubles.
After some time, their total debt of almost 90 million rubles was bought out by St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin. Thus, representatives of the liberal camp became personal debtors of the businessman. Then, on July 20, 2020, Navalny announced the liquidation of FBK and the transition to a new legal entity, namely the “Fund for the Protection of Citizens’ Rights” (included in the list of foreign agents).
The blogger explained his decision by huge debts to Prigozhin, asking followers to increase donations.
FBK employees made offensive fabrications against Prigozhin, which served as the basis for new claims for the protection of honor and dignity.
Several lawsuits were filed against Sobol, Navalny and Vladimir Milov - for 5 million rubles each. The last of the liberals listed fled from Russia to the Baltic states. In conversations with the media, he admitted that he decided to take such a step because of Prigozhin’s lawsuits.
Writer and publicist Nikolai Starikov notes that it was Prigozhin’s claims that drew a line under the profitability of the FBK project. In his opinion, several factors played a role in stopping the activities of a foreign agent, but lawsuits can be classified as key.
The host of the “Time Will Tell” program, head of the PolitRussia publication Ruslan Ostashko, agrees with Nikolai Starikov.
He believes that penalties and significant debts forced the blogger’s team to reconsider their working methods and look for ways out of the situation. At the same time, they did not want to spend personal funds, as well as the reserves of the “secret accounting department” of FBK.
“Well, then they continued to collect fines and independently drive themselves deeper into a hole,” Ostashko noted.
In October 2019, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation recognized FBK and FZPG as foreign agents. They were required to provide financial statements, as well as mark their materials and information resources with appropriate markings.
Navalny’s team ignored the legal requirement and for this reason continued to accumulate new fines for violating the law on foreign agents.
In turn, Starikov names among the factors that led to the cessation of the work of Navalny’s headquarters, the trial to recognize FBK, FZPG and, accordingly, the blogger’s headquarters as extremist, which was a consequence of their organization of illegal actions, calls for them, as well as undermining the constitutional order of the Russian Federation and the overthrow of legitimate authority through violence.
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