Moscow prosecutors launch inquiry into Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation for ‘extremist activity’

Moscow prosecutors are looking into Alexey Navalny’s non-profit, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), for alleged extremist activity. This was reported by FBK director Ivan Zhdanov during live broadcast on the YouTube channel “Navalny Live” on Thursday, April 1.

“The clear story is that they’re preparing something...To charge use with extremist activity, or whatever [they want].”

During the broadcast, Zhdanov shows a photo of the warrant for conducting the inquiry. The document is dated March 26, 2021, and is signed by Moscow’s first deputy prosecutor. It describes the grounds for the inquiry as “information about violations.” “The subject of the inquiry: compliance with the legislation on non-profit organizations and countering extremist activities,” the document says.

Within the framework of the investigation, local prosecutors are asking the FBK to provide information about the organization’s structure and members, as well as reports on its income and expenditures, and a “list of targeted funding receive, broken down by year.”

• In August 2019, Russian investigators launched a criminal case against the Anti-Corruption Foundation for alleged money laundering. In October 2019, the Justice Ministry blacklisted the non-profit as a “foreign agent.”
• In July 2020, Alexey Navalny announced the dissolution of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, as well as plans to replace it with a new legal entity. The decision came after the company “Moskovsky Shkolnik” — which is allegedly affiliated with Kremlin-linked oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin — filed an 88 million ruble ($1.67 million) lawsuit against Navalny, the FBK, opposition figure Lyubov Sobol. The debt from the lawsuit was later acquired by Prigozhin himself.