Who and how is sanctions lists? Do the investigations of journalists and associates of Navalny influence them? Or do the US authorities decide everything?

Says lawyer Pavel Ivlev - one of the authors of the Magnitsky List

Hundreds of Russian politicians and businessmen were on sanctions lists because of the war with Ukraine. But who and how is these lists? And what role did the numerous investigations of Russian journalists and associates of Alexei Navalny play in their formation? Medusa talked about this with Pavel Ivlev, a former lawyer of Yukos, in Russia in absentia sentenced to 10 years in prison in the case of theft of oil. Ivlev, who emigrated in the United States many years ago, was one of the compilers of one of the most famous sanctions lists of Russian officials - the Magnitsky List .

- What is the main task of personal sanctions imposed by the West, in your opinion? Inquire to the behavior of politicians? Try to change the inner rhetoric? Frighten?

- The task of sanctions is that individual, not individual, one - so that Russia ceases its aggressive actions. This is the main goal. The cause of personal sanctions - they are more painful in specific persons who, in one way or another, affect politics. Someone directly is the same Putin and his close associates, a certain circle of officials, such as members of the State Duma or Council. So they voted, made a villainous decision. They are punished for what they did - to think in the future.

As for businessmen. Here we look at these sanctions and wonder why such different faces appear there. [The head of Rosneft Igor] Sechin, [Arkady] Rotenberg and [Gennady] Timchenko is heard by everyone, everything is clear here. [Oleg] Deripaska and [Victor] Vekselberg also in the lists for a long time, but it is not so clear in fact that they have a direct junction to power. Still, they are on their own, a private business, they were never friends of Putin in the cooperative "Lake", they did not wear a suitcase for him, like Sechin. Further, when this [sanctions] list was complemented by [billionaire Andrey] Melnichenko, Alpha -these what?

The explanation at the same time, which the Western government gives: "Here they are involved in that, went here-tue ." Well, yes, probably. But the degree of this involvement is increasingly moving away from the adoption of political decisions.

- What then are the criteria for entering sanctions lists?

- Most likely, [they were introduced] because these are people with money, people are influential people, who are now required for them to take a clear position - either support Ukraine and oppose Russian aggression, or let them sit without money. The West makes such a decision - sharp and cardinal, they say, "you had a lot of money - no longer."

- That is, this is such an instrument in the style of “Think with whom you”?

- Well, I had to think before. People who have such assets, they a priori are very smart. They themselves, in the first generation, built enormous empires and businesses, earned a lot of money. We must pay tribute to their minds and abilities. To assume that they did not think or wondered that they could fall under sanctions, the same [Michael] Friedman or [Andrey] Melnichenko, [Alexey] Mordashov? Of course, they thought about it. It was simply believed that they had nothing to do with it, in general, not with the regime, they do not directly support Putin, do only what they are obliged to, with their business. I think there was something in their heads.

Probably, to varying degrees they were preparing, but it is simply difficult for many to do it. Assets are packed in some kind of holdings, yachts, houses, shares-all this, of course, is done through the West, so it is accepted. Very often it is simply impossible to change this structure - if you begin to redraw it, all the more to hide the ends to whom it belongs, it will not work in the Western world. It didn’t work before, but now even more so, when everyone requires disclosure of information. At least banks need to provide information , what do you have and where, what obligations, what assets.

It was necessary to take some more active actions of political opposition or at least completely dissociate from the Kremlin. But this is a really difficult question. This war gave rise to sanctions, which became little -collapse. The one who lit up in the photo with Putin, and those who literally immediately met him after the declaration of the war - so they hit. But it is clear that there is also a preparatory work, not that they have chosen everyone in photographs. Of course, each of them has a dossier.

- But Tigran Khudardyan, the former Yandex Director, has already been included in the new sanctions list, for example, the former managing director of Yandex. A company employee who is not registered at all in Russia and is not connected with Vladimir Putin.

- He is a famous person. These are IT technologies that are now in the top of everything. Yandex is generally Russian Google. Maybe one of the [components of the sanctions lists] of the bosses said: “Something we have continuous resources here. Do they have it there? " They answered him: "Yes, here is a tigran." Here it is for a heap so that his colleagues from Russia also combed out.

- That is, this is such a signal, including those who are not connected with politics?

- It cannot be said that it is not connected with politics. Any big business is a policy.

- The same Khudardyan got into the US sanctions list marked, which is included in the “internal circle of oligarchs close to Putin”, as he attended a meeting of businessmen with the president in the Kremlin on February 24. It seems that in this particular case, the examination of those who make up the list of sanctions suffers.

- I think that it really can hardly be attributed to the close circle of friends of Putin and his accomplices. We can say yes, that the examination is suffering. She is far from ideal. They can see some things well, for example, from space-the concentration of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine, there can be no mistake. But these internal slave trends, who to whom and why, of course, here they do not know much and cannot know.

You see, the American government does not set itself the goal of clearly identifying each of them. They beat the business leaders to show the rest that "and you will be under sanctions."

- Who are these experts who make up the sanctions lists, and where do the oligarchs close to Putin come from?

- There are experts who work in the US Department of Finance itself, people who work in the State Department, plus people who work in the CIA and to a lesser extent of the FBI. Most of these experts are classified, they are not public people. Maybe the current ambassador [USA in Russia] is one of the experts.

This is not that some kind of wise worm in the office sits and knows everything. No, this is a working group, they interview a certain group of persons - and they do it very carefully so that there is no leak. Most likely, they pass in a circle of named departments, in each of which, of course, there is a specialist in Russia. What a specialist he is - we do not know. In addition, there is probably a database in the same CIA.

In fact, if they turned to the specialists of large companies, for example, the same Bloomberg or Cambridge Analytica , there are, of course, specialists who are very well versed in certain segments of the Russian economy. But they must give a subscription and keep their mouth shut. And the American government should be sure that they will do it - this is the risk of leakage.

- Do they attract experts from Russia for consultations on the sanctions lists?

- Most likely not. All this is done in the deepest secrecy mode, so that God forbid a person does not know ahead of time that they are going to send him to sanctions. They cannot afford to work with experts who are not verified. This is most likely their internal specialists.

-Do journalistic investigations about the assets of Russian politicians play a role in compiling lists-including the high-profile investigations of Alexei Navalny and the Corruption Fund ? Are such materials studied when making decisions?

- Of course, this is informing those who make decisions. FBK publicly did this, we saw the list of Ashurkov . Many tried to pay attention to this, here he is such and such a villain, he is corrupt. Of course, this is information that was accepted and accepted for note, evaluated, this work was not done in vain. Do not think that “Uncle Sam and his assistants” know and understand everything. Not at all, very often the opposite. And they need it all.

-Sanctions against people from the list of Russian Forbes-is it still an attempt to hit them personally or business too? Well, they will leave the board of directors and from direct management. And what?

- Personally hit, yes. For example, a little earlier, when [Alisher] Usmanov fell under the sanctions, it was immediately said that the business he invested in was not touching. Here it is - yes, to sanctions. Since he has a huge amount of passive assets, for example, in the same Facebook at one time he was quite seriously invested through Yuri Milner, who did not hide that his holding has Usman investments.

Again, the story with [Oleg] Deripaska, who had previously been put under the sanctions. This is aluminum - a huge piece of the global market (Deripaska is the founder of the company "Rusal", one of the largest producers of aluminum in the world - approx. "Medusa") . Deripaska left the Office of Rusal. Yes, Deripaska under sanctions, he will not come anywhere, personal assets are frozen, but the businesses in which he participates will not be stopped. There are a lot of shareholders and business partners.

Sanctions again how do they work? American faces must observe them themselves. They must read who, under the sanctions, should analyze with whom they are doing business and stop these matters. It's complicated. This can not always be worked out. While the companies are consistent, calculate what and to whom they belong, they themselves can already fall under fines. Disrupted - pay. Just in case, they begin to chop all communication channels, thereby poisoning their lives to their consumers. This all should not be so painful, so they try to mix [and impose sanctions] against specific people.

- Can the relations of businessmen and politicians change now? For example, a business will simply be afraid to contact someone from power?

-For those who can afford such changes, for those who are not tied deeply by some obligations, relationships, yes. For them there is this moment of truth - "we make our choice." And there are a lot of those who can do this non -public. And someone cannot, someone has customers-these are Russian Gazprom and Rosneft. Therefore, they have nowhere to go.

- Businessmen have something to lose both within Russia and beyond. And what is the purpose of imposing sanctions against Russian politicians and officials?

-Officials, firstly, must be punished for the fact that they are part of this machine. On the other hand, maybe somewhere they have something: some investments, at least some real estate, if not with them, then in children. And then he is an official now, and then he will cease to be him. They were not just called villains, including in this list, in the future they will not be able to interact with anyone in the West.

- It can be assumed that officials should have been prepared for sanctions and managed to make them and relatives to a lesser extent affected. For example, they found lawyers who did everything so that no one was digging?

- It is not so simple, it is not always possible to hide. Someone just stupidly can have a mortgage, which is completely normal for the Western market. The bank will not bury the mortgage.

I will be very surprised if they tell me that [the head of the Web.rf Igor] Shuvalov broke up with his assets in London or in Austria . So, maybe something was redeemed, but still it belongs to his family. If you have any expensive castle on Sardinia, then it is not just to sell it yet-this is an exclusive and expensive asset.

And then, you see, the Russian official is sitting here, he does not know either English or Italian. He knows that this is his beloved house on the same Sardinia, he went there. It’s hard for him to figure out what to do next with him, to whom to pay and save his favorite property. It is psychologically difficult to give someone your property.

Well, they will come and arrest - this will not be taken away. It is clear that in the West a sense of ownership is more developed than that of Russian officials, so to select everything and share - it should be a serious political will. Although this cannot be ruled out. Maybe some countries will begin to really confiscate them, this can also be. Damage to the economy and residents of Ukraine is caused by a huge one, they may think about how to redistribute all this in their favor.

- What is the meaning of Russia's sanctions ? Does this somehow affect foreign politicians?

- This is pure symbolism. We are included in the nominal lists, we also lead our own. It is clear that, for example, [US Secretary of State Anthony] Blinken is completely purple, he fell into these lists or not.

- Did you work on the compilation of the Magnitsky list ?

- I did it. I was one of those people who in parallel with Bill Broud moved this Magnitsky law.

- How was it arranged? How did it take inclusion in the lists?

- In the same way as other sanctions lists. First, the regulatory framework is adopted, in this case it was the law of the US Congress. In addition, there are a dozen laws, presidential decrees, which also regulate sanctions. The same “Magnitsky Law” was first only in Russia, and then it was expanded throughout the world, including in the direction of attracting not only malicious violators of human rights, but also corrupt officials.

There were cases when we offered someone to make someone, but we were refused. For example, how many were worn with the same [head of the Investigative Committee Alexander] Bastrykin, it is clear that he is a villain and we must enter him on the list. But they did not turn it on immediately. There was a problem with the [head of Chechnya Ramzan] Kadyrov, because he was first included in a closed list, non -public. I had to demand [include in the open list]. Before this happened and this information became open, several years have also passed.

Still, say, the US government was extremely reluctant to put judges under the sanctions. They have, as they say, respect for the judicial mantle, so it was very difficult to prove that the judge is the same villain as the prosecutor. It was difficult for them to understand that the court in Russia is not independent. It was necessary to come to this.

For many years in the West I have been trying to explain why a particular businessman, who is charged with any fraud, [is not to blame] that this is all a “custom-made” case and the motives of the persecution there are others. This is what I constantly have to prove. And it was very not just to prove that [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky was not a villain who stole all oil, but an oppositional businessman who had the arrogance to argue with Putin and claim influence through the State Duma. For more than one year, it took them [the USA] to begin to cut into something. Believe me, in 2005, the position and opinion in relation to Russia, the respect of its government and institutions were completely different.

- That is, we can say that during the compilation of the Magnitsky list, more efforts and evidence were required than now?

- Yes, of course. But it’s hard to prove now, we are not investigators who have resources and opportunities. We ourselves [by ourselves]. You must manage to collect the information, draw it to convey to the Western authorities. I myself personally made a list of villains in the Yukos case. There were 310 names - from prosecutors to small district judges and investigators. There was a lot of work, but we did it. This list was presented in the Harry Kasparov Congress. And most of these persons, small judges, prosecutors and investigators, did not get into the sanctions lists.

Nadezhda Metalnikova