The claim to protect the honor, dignity and business reputation of the director of the Russian Guard, Viktor Zolotov, against the politician Alexei Navalny was returned to the plaintiff. The relevant information was published on Sunday on the website of the Lublin Court of Moscow. The court made this decision due to the fact that Zolotov did not eliminate within the established time frame the violations committed when filing the statement of claim.

The director of the Russian Guard filed a lawsuit against Navalny on December 11 last year due to an investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). Zolotov asked to recognize the information disseminated by FBK as defamatory and untrue and to recover 1 million rubles from Navalny.

In December, the court left Zolotov’s claim without progress due to the fact that it did not meet the requirements of Art. 131 and 132 of the Code of Civil Procedure. The first concerns the form and content of the statement of claim, the second concerns the documents attached to the claim. The applicant had to eliminate the deficiencies by January 9, the court’s press service reported.

In 2016 and 2018 The Navalny Foundation published two investigations concerning the director of the Russian Guard and the service itself. The first stated that the Zolotov family owned property worth 663 million rubles, including a plot of land, three apartments in Moscow, a cottage in Sochi and two houses in Barvikha and Gelendzhik. Also in this investigation it was alleged that Zolotov owns the dacha of the Soviet statesman Anastas Mikoyan in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region.

According to the second investigation, the cost of products purchased by the Russian Guard increased sharply after Meat Processing Plant Druzhba Narodov LLC became the sole supplier of food and nutrition services for the Russian Guard. FBK called the investigation “Who is eating up Russia?”, and Navalny’s video for it was called “Which of them is eating up the Russian Guard?”

After the publication of the second investigation, Zolotov recorded a video message in which he challenged Navalny “to a duel” - “in the ring, on the tatami, anywhere” and promised to make the oppositionist “a good, juicy chop.” Navalny responded by calling Zolotov to a live debate on some federal channel.

At the end of December last year, the Russian Guard announced that for another two years it would receive products from the Druzhba Narodov meat processing plant, mentioned in the FBK investigation. According to the department, working with a single supplier allows us to quickly supply all departments with quality products.

The court returned to the director of the Russian Guard his claim against Navalny due to identified violations