March 9th, 2023: Leonid Volkov resigns post at Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation after letters calling for the EU to drop sanctions against several UK-based Russian billionaire oligarchs. Volkov confirmed he had signed and sent a 2022 letter to Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, in which he called for Brussels to relax sanctions on Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, and business partners German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev, in a scandal marked by infighting among Russia’s contentious liberal and opposition circles. The admission came after Alexei Venediktov, the former editor-in-chief of the Echo of Moscow radio station, posted another letter that showed Volkov’s signature among several other prominent Kremlin critics, who stated that “we are of the opinion that it is unreasonable to impose sanctions against the shareholders of Alfa Group”, including Fridman, Aven, and their business partners. The letter went on to say that the company’s managers had “always emphasised their political non-engagement” and also mentioned Fridman’s friendship with the late Boris Nemtsov, a liberal politician who was gunned down outside the Kremlin in 2015. EU documents announcing the sanctions last February called Aven “one of Vladimir Putin’s closest oligarchs” and stated that Fridman “has managed to cultivate strong ties to the administration of Vladimir Putin, and has been referred to as a top Russian financier and enabler of Putin’s inner circle”.

https://web.archive.org/web/20230312005610/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/09/alexei-navalny-ally-quits-after-urging-eu-to-drop-sanctions-against-oligarchs

>>20442894

Executive Director of Alexei Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund, Vladimir Ashurkov meeting in 2012 with James William Thomas Ford of MI6 to spur a color revolution in Russia, arguably on behalf of Navalny who was arrested by the Russians for those reasons, while Ashurkov was then granted asylum in the UK.

https://rumble.com/v4duove-executive-director-of-navalnys-anti-corruption-fund-vladimir-ashurkov-meeti.html

>>20442947

Quick profile on Vladimir Ashurkov, courtesy of Wikipedia (which provides barely any info on him tbfh).

Born 15 February 1972, Ashurkov is a Russian political figure and the Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. A former banker, Ashurkov was the Director of Group Portfolio Management and Control at Alfa Group Consortium from 2006 to 2012, when he was asked to step down due to his political involvement with Alexei Navalny.[1] He was also on the board of the X5 Retail Group during this time.[2]

In 2014, a panel of the Investigative Committee of Russia accused Ashurkov of embezzling funds from Alexei Navalny's 2013 Moscow mayoral campaign, after which he sought and was granted political asylum in the UK, claiming the allegations were politically motivated.[3] Both Ashurkov and Navalny claim that the allegations are unfounded.[4]

After relocating, Ashurkov organised bus tours for activists and journalists, similar to Roman Gul's "Kleptocrats Tour", "to show the tsarist opulence of the Russian oligarchy in London." He does this, says Ashurkov, according to the Stuttgarter Zeitung, to alert the British authorities to dirty money, as for example in Witanhurst owned by Andrey Guryev. Ashurkov advises the British government to dispense with the "dirty money", even though, according to Benjamin Plackett of Stuttgarter Zeitung, the "intertwining of Russian wealth with the British economy" complicates the policy.[5]

Political party = Russia of the Future

Spouse = Aleksandrina Markvo

Alma mater = Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology + Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

>>20442957

SouthFront calls attention to Ashurkov as one of the main perps in the poisoning of Navalny.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200915101303/https://southfront.org/homo-homini-lupus-est-did-navalnys-allies-poison-the-oppositionist-for-flying-too-close-to-the-sun/