Chief investigator in multiple cases against Navalny receives promotion

Roman Vidyukov, the chief investigator in cases against Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF), has been promoted to deputy head of Russia’s Main Investigation Department, ACF director Ivan Zhdanov said on Tuesday.

Vidyukov, who oversaw multiple cases against Navalny personally, including the 2019 “money laundering” case that preceded the ACF being labelled an extremist organisation and dissolved, was “yet another accomplice in Navalny’s murder”, Zhdanov wrote, before noting that “evil triumphs”.

Ever since the start of his career in 2009, Vidyukov has been given professional benefits, promotions and awards whenever his investigations led to convictions, independent Russian TV channel Dozhd reported on Tuesday, citing Vidyukov’s work investigating former economic development minister Alexey Ulyukaev and former regional official Alexander Shestun for bribery.

Vidyukov is not the only official to have received a promotion since Navalny’s death. Three days after the opposition politician’s demise, Valery Boyarinov, then deputy head of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), was given the rank of colonel general. Zhdanov said that Boyarinov had been responsible for overseeing Navalny’s torture in prison.

FSIN announced Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death on 16 February, saying that medics pronounced Navalny dead after he “lost consciousness after a walk”.