The trial to protect the honor of the general's wife will take place without Anastasia Misharina

Yesterday, the Kirov District Court of Yekaterinburg, which is considering a claim for the protection of honor, dignity and business reputation of the co-founder of Argus SFK CJSC Anna Surovikina against City Duma deputy Leonid Volkov, refused to involve Anastasia Misharina, the daughter of Sverdlovsk Governor Alexander Misharin, as a witness in the process. The defense failed to prove that it also has a share in Argus SFK CJSC.

Yesterday, during the preliminary meeting, the parties once again announced their positions. The representative of the plaintiff, Nikolai Bukin, confirmed the demands to recognize the information disseminated by Mr. Volkov in the blog as untrue, to refute it and to collect a fine of 100 thousand rubles from the deputy. Let us recall that the co-founder of Argus SFK CJSC Anna Surovikina (wife of the first deputy commander of the Central Military District, Lieutenant General Sergei Surovikin) filed a lawsuit over two entries in the deputy’s blog, which stated that Argus SFK allegedly received “unjustified benefits” from regional authorities. In particular, we are talking about the timber industry enterprise receiving a 93% discount on connecting to electricity grids and the construction of a thermal power plant that will operate on waste from the enterprise's production.

Mr. Volkov continues to insist on his innocence. “To admit Leonid Volkov’s guilt, it is necessary, first of all, to prove that he was a distributor of information about Argus SFK and Anna Surovikina. But this is not so,” his lawyer Alexander Pomazuev said yesterday. He explained that, according to the decisions of the plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, “the distributor is the person who disseminates any information for the first time.” “Volkov’s notes contain links to primary sources, that is, to media sites,” the lawyer emphasized. “What do I have to do with it? “I am an improper defendant,” Leonid Volkov inserted the word. In addition, he suggested attaching to the case materials an article published on the website of the news agency Ura.ru in 2008. In this publication, according to him, we are talking about the fact that members of the cabinet of ministers of the Sverdlovsk region were interested in providing benefits for Argus SFK. Nikolai Bukin tried to intervene. He stated that the only similarity between the Ura.ru article and the deputy’s blog entries is the Russian alphabet. “There is no exact quote,” he emphasized. However, judge Tatyana Chirkova still accepted the article for consideration.

However, Mr. Volkov’s attempt to involve another co-owner of Argus SFK, Anastasia Misharina, the daughter of Sverdlovsk Governor Alexander Misharin, in the process as a witness, was unsuccessful. The judge refused to grant the defendant’s request after Mr. Bukin provided documents stating that 100% of Argus SFK CJSC is owned by another legal entity, Argus Holding CJSC. “But we said that Anastasia Misharina’s connection with Argus SFK may be indirect,” Alexander Pomazuev objected. “I see no reason to involve Anastasia Misharina in this process. She does not have a share in Argus SFK CJSC and did not file a claim,” the judge explained. After the meeting, Mr. Bukin admitted in a conversation with a Kommersant correspondent that Ms. Misharina, according to his information, owns a share in Argus Holding CJSC, but found it difficult to clarify its size.

During the trial, Mr. Pomazuev also announced that the defendant’s side was preparing a new petition. “We demand an independent forensic linguistic examination of the entries on Leonid Volkov’s blog,” he said. The fact is that the linguistic conclusion of Anna Plotnikova, Doctor of Philology, was attached to the case materials, which was made at the request of the plaintiff’s representative Nikolai Bukin. “But we have doubts that this conclusion can be relied upon during the trial. In defining the concept of “defamatory information,” the expert refers to the resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court from 1992, although it was recognized as outdated,” he noted. As follows from the text of the linguistic report (available to Kommersant), the expert had to determine whether Leonid Volkov’s blog entries contained negative information about Anna Surovikina, as well as information discrediting her business reputation. The expert confirmed that negative information was present and presented in the form of statements, but did not indicate whether it discredited Ms. Surovikina’s business reputation.

The next court hearing is scheduled for March 17.

Maria Plyusnina

The governor's daughter was not allowed into court