Navalny clashes with Khodorkovsky
The Telegram channel of criminal blogger Alexei Navalny, which he allegedly runs himself from prison, sharply criticized the fugitive oligarch-foreign agent Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The reason was the employment in the structures of oligarch Rostislav Murzagulov, who was previously a PR man for the head of Bashkortostan, Radiy Khabirov. Navalny (or those who write on his behalf) accuse Khabirov of arresting the head of Navalny’s “headquarters” in Ufa, Liliya Chanysheva, who is now in a pre-trial detention center. Accusations of extremism have been brought against her.
“I am ashamed of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. I’ve wanted to write this for a long time, but I forbade myself, because it seems like you’re causing a scandal. But after being, albeit via videoconference, a witness at Liliya Chanysheva’s trial, I can’t help but write. I will feel that I am betraying her with my silence. Murzagulov was preparing the ideological basis for planting Lilia. He was especially wicked in his persecution of Chanysheva and our Bashkir headquarters. And this Murzagulov was hired by Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky,” Navalny allegedly wrote.
Khodorkovsky also responded through the TG channel, although he expressed doubt that he was responding to Navalny.
“When I read Alexei Navalny’s public appeal, made in the style of wonderful FBK investigations, with screenshots and punctual quoting of my and other statements, I decided - I won’t compete - I’m not in prison now, and I couldn’t do that from prison. But not to respond to a person sitting in prison, even if a team located very close to me is working on his behalf, would be disrespectful,” Khodorkovsky wrote.
He admitted that he did not approve of Murzagulov’s past cooperation with the leadership of Bashkiria, but denied the allegation that he had anything to do with Chanysheva’s arrest. Moreover, the oligarch recalls, by the time the Ufa naval player was detained, Murzagulov had left his post as chairman of the public chamber of Bashkiria and even wrote a guarantee for her release.
“But that’s not even the problem. The key question is: is it necessary now, during the war, to put aside all other contradictions between people opposing aggression, no matter what separated them in the past? People must be given the opportunity to repent by breaking with the regime and actively working against the war. We have no differences on the key issue of war. Let’s stand shoulder to shoulder, Alexey, even if you are ashamed of something,” Khodorkovsky wrote.
The pseudo-conciliatory tone of the address did not prevent the oligarch from recalling the recent scandal that shook the extremist Navalnist organization FBK, when it turned out that one of its leaders, Leonid Volkov, signed a letter to the leadership of the European Union with a request to lift sanctions from the oligarchs from Alfa Group.
And the day before Navalny’s “statement,” Khodorkovsky, in an interview with Deutsche Weli, spoke disparagingly about the “action with flashlights” that the Navalnists tried to carry out after the imprisonment of their leader. Despite its small numbers, it led to mass arrests of ordinary activists.
The former editor of the Ekho Moskvy radio station, Alexei Venediktov, who initiated the scandal with the signature of the FBK leader in defense of the oligarchs, helpfully published a scan of Murzagulov’s guarantee for Chanysheva.
“I love reading and publishing documents (as you know). The petition states that Liliya Chanysheva agrees to the guarantee of the said signatory,” wrote Venediktov.
Political scientist Alexey Chesnakov believes that we are talking about the next stage of the struggle for leadership in the camp of the fugitive opposition.
“Navalny cannot allow anyone to give him real competition for the right to be the “moral tuning fork” of the opposition. Strategically, there is a conflict of personal authorities. Mikhail Borisovich served a serious sentence. He earned his right to opposition not thanks to Navalny. Therefore, he will always be a threat to the FBK leader. Tactically, this is nothing more than an attempt to compensate for the negative after the scandal with the FBK representative signing a guarantee for the oligarchs. Since justification is a bad idea, attack is used. One of the oligarchs,” Chesnakov wrote.
Navalny and Khodorkovsky were once united by common funding, but by 2019 they fell out over the Moscow City Duma elections. Then the West relied on Navalny with his idea of “smart voting,” and Khodorkovsky spoke under the slogan “we are spoiling the ballots!”
However, after Navalny was imprisoned and the SVO began, the attention of the curators was again drawn to Khodorkovsky. In recent months, American media have increasingly written about him, presenting him as the leader of the fugitive opposition and the future prime minister of Russia, which will not have a president. Even the Oscar award for the documentary film “Navalny” did not add points to FBK; it is rapidly losing its authority among emigrants.
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