The Navalnists are frightening large Russian businesses. The Kremlin responds
The political struggle in Russia is moving from the streets to the sphere of economic sanctions. Navalny’s ally Leonid Volkov, who fled to Berlin, announced tough sanctions against businessmen who support the Kremlin. He assures that European governments are ready to provide support to the Navalists.
“A completely new area of work for us is foreign policy. As part of this work, we will take away from Putin’s wallets and his oligarch friends their assets around the world... We must hit the money. Let all his Timchenkos and Rotenbergs run to him to complain that because of Putin, everything was taken away from them. Let them demand that he do something about it. Let them think, do they need Putin, because of whom they have so many problems?” – Volkov said in his video message to supporters.
There have also been calls from the opposite camp to work with the businesses that finance Navalny.
“Our main task here, while they are reconfiguring, is to hit wallets. There are various rumors going around here about our various businessmen who finance it. I categorically believe that under no circumstances should one succumb to provocation. Our businessmen could have very different situations why they financed Navalny one way or another. They could be victims of blackmail from, among other things, Western intelligence services, and we need to help these people free themselves from this blackmail.
Why don’t they declare this themselves and say that yes, we were blackmailed, yes, we were forced to give money to Navalny. And, of course, amnesty measures should be applied to them. Well, if not, then excuse me, in the current situation, this is state treason in its purest form,” HSE professor Dmitry Evstafiev said on the Russia-1 TV channel.
However, the consequences for businesses that donated money to street opposition have already begun. Today, the Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested in absentia the “sponsor of the Anti-Corruption Fund” (FBK; included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of NGOs-foreign agents) Alexander Khomenko in a case of fraud worth 30 million rubles. Khomenko, a personal friend of Navalny and his family, often joined the blogger’s campaigns.
Economist Nikita Krichevsky believes that Russian government sanctions against businessmen who financed Navalny are already being applied.
«Satisfaction of Rosprirodnadzor's claims against Norilsk Nickel for 146 billion rubles It was not just that it coincided with the publication (and subsequent confirmation) of information that Potanin had been secretly funding Navalny for many years. This information reached the very top and caused indignation and anger there,” Krichevsky wrote in his Telegram channel.
Let us recall that the owner of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, publicly agreed with the fairness of the fine imposed on his company, although he had previously disputed the amount of the restrictions.
“From now on, environmental and industrial safety issues will have to be taken even more seriously. Our company, I think, has learned this lesson,” he said.
Moreover, Potanin said that he would spend 350 billion rubles on solving environmental issues.
The accident at CHPP-3 of the Norilsk Nickel subsidiary occurred on May 29. More than 21 thousand tons of diesel fuel spilled from the depressurized storage facility, most of which ended up in nearby rivers.
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