Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) said it had submitted a broader list of a total of 35 people in a letter to Biden, dated Friday, with eight listed on a “priority shortlist”. The letter states that seven of the 35 individuals are already on U.S. sanctions lists.
The move comes before nationwide protests planned over the weekend in support of Navalny, who are being held in custody ahead of a court hearing next week.
In a copy of the letter received by CNN, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich is named on the ‘priority shortlist’, for which FBK describes as a key envoy and a supposed beneficiary of ‘kleptocracy in the Kremlin’. Abramovich is the owner of the English Premier League football club Chelsea. A spokesman for Abramovich said in an email to CNN that “there is no basis for such claims which are completely unfounded.”
Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko is also named for allegedly “concealing” Navalny’s poisoning and obstructing efforts to evacuate the Russian opposition leader to Germany for medical treatment. CNN reached out to the Russian Ministry of Health for comment.
FBK executive director Vladimir Ashurkov, who signed the letter, told CNN on Saturday that the foundation called on the United States to put pressure on Putin to release Navalny.
“The letter is addressed to the President of the United States – the most powerful country. [The US] has a history of imposing sanctions on people involved in corruption. If anyone can do anything, it’s the US, “Ashurkov told CNN.
The letter, which CNN saw, said that for years Navalny had called for sanctions against individuals who he said were key to “supporting” Putin in “prosecuting” those who “want to express their opinion freely and corruption in the [Russian] system, “adding that existing sanctions are not” enough of the right people “.
“The West must steal and poison the decision-makers who made the national policy to set up elections from the budget. It must also punish the people who own their money.” The letter goes on to say: “Anything less will allow the government to change its behavior.”
Ashurkov said he and Navalny worked on the list of 35 Russians before Navalny returned from Germany earlier this month, initially concentrating on the top eight.
The letter divides the list of 35 people into three groups:
- “Oligarchs to whom Putin has given wealth and power, and who exercise it on behalf of the regime;”
- “Human rights violators and those who oppress fundamental civil and political freedoms;”
- “Individuals specifically involved in the prosecution of Navalny and our organization.”
“We did not want to make this list public until we had done the full dossier on it. But after his [Navalny’s] “We knew we had to act,” Ashurkov told CNN.
Navalny was detained on January 17, moments after arriving in Moscow after months of treatment in Germany after being poisoned by nerve agent Novichok in August 2020.
He is currently in custody ahead of a court hearing on Feb. 2, where a court will decide whether to suspend his suspended sentence on charges of fraud in a 2014 case for embezzlement in jail for violating the provisions. of his Russian authorities suspended sentence.
The letter states that the eight individuals who are shortlisted are of a special priority. They were discussed with Navalny before boarding the plane to travel back to Moscow, Ashurkov said.
Ashurkov said Navalny’s team planned to make the same request to the European Union and the British government.
In an interview with CNN earlier this week, former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who served more than ten years in a Russian prison after falling out with Putin for emphasizing official corruption, also said the new U.S. government is global. must take the lead in making sure he does not hit Navalny as well.
In exile in London, Khodorkovsky said Biden and others in the West should impose personal sanctions on those closest to Putin, rather than broad sectoral sanctions.
Khodorkovsky said that Putin’s target would be very painful for the Russian president and that it would affect the stability of his power.
CNN’s Anna Chernova contributed to this report.