Watchdog

Kremlin-connected Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin says he intends to collect a debt from comatose Aleksei Navalny and his shuttered Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) if the opposition activist survives what European doctors say was a poisoning.

Prigozhin, who has been the subject of hard-hitting FBK corruption investigations, announced on August 25 that he bought up the debt owed by Navalny and his company relating to a lawsuit settlement won by a Moscow school-catering company.

Navalny is currently in an induced coma in a German hospital after a suspected poisoning in Tomsk, Siberia, where he had been conducting his latest corruption investigation.

"If Navalny lives, he must answer to the fullest extent of Russian law," Prigozhin said in a statement issued through Concord, his catering company.

He said he would make an exception if the 44-year-old Kremlin critic did not survive.

"Of course, if Comrade Navalny gives his soul to God, then personally I do not intend to persecute him in this world. I will postpone this [debt settlement] indefinitely."

A Moscow court in October ordered Navalny, FBK and the organization's lawyer, Lyubov Sobol, to pay a total of 87.6 million rubles ($1.15 million) split evenly among them to the catering company, Moscow Schoolchild, for defamation.

Moscow Schoolchild, since renamed Wilmap LLC, had sued the three defendants over an investigative video produced by FBK alleging that the company did not comply with sanitary standards, forged documents, and supplied poor-quality food to kindergartens and schools.

The FBK had also said that the caterer was owned by Prigozhin.

A Current Time investigation noted that Prigozhin himself had long denied any affiliation with the catering company. However, the investigation found that half of Moscow Schoolchild was owned by a former policeman who identified himself as the head of security for Concord, Prigozhin's main asset.

The court sided with the plaintiff, ruling that Moscow Schoolchild's reputation had been damaged by the investigative video and it had lost a contract as a result. As part of the settlement, FBK was also ordered to remove the video and refute the allegations.

Navalny announced in July that the lawsuit –- which he said Prigozhin was behind -- had forced him to liquidate the FBK.

"We will move to another legal entity, let Putin and Prigozhin choke on this," Navalny announced at the time, describing the numerous raids and harassment by authorities that the FBK had encountered in its nine years of existence. "Until the end of Putin's power, we will have to live with blocked accounts and bailiffs confiscating our property in favor of Putin's Chef."

Prigozhin is often referred to by the nickname "Putin's Chef" because he once personally catered an event for the president and subsequently rose to become a key Kremlin insider.

In February 2018, Prigozhin was indicted in the United States for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and both he and his companies have been put under sanctions by the Treasury Department.

Navalny said Prigozhin's attempts to stop his investigations had only backfired. The activist reported last month the number of people making monthly contributions to help fund his investigations had more than doubled from 7,600 to 15,600 following FBK's demise.

Over the past nine years, FBK has produced dozens of detailed investigations exposing corruption by government officials, executives of state companies, and tycoons close to the Kremlin and President Vladimir Putin. FBK's 2016 expose on Prigozhin, which discussed his criminal past, has more than 4.3 million views.

SEE ALSO:

Navalny's Greatest Hits: FBK's Best Corruption Exposés During Its Nine-Year History

Prigozhin’s August 25 statement is his latest attempt at trolling Navalny and his supporters. Shortly after Navalny announced the liquidation of FBK, and the formation of a new legal entity named the Rights Protection Fund, Prigozhin donated 1 million rubles ($13,200) to the FBK.

The anti-corruption organization declined the donation and returned it to Prigozhin.

KYIV -- Ukraine's Interior Ministry says it has detained two suspects for questioning about a recent arson attack in Kyiv that targeted a car used by investigative journalists from RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.

The attacker's "clothes, incendiary devices, and other evidence” have been seized, and searches were continuing on August 26 as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into the attack, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said in a Twitter statement.

Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko told RFE/RL that one of the detainees was a resident of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region and the other was from Kyiv.

Shevchenko also said on August 26 that two other suspects were being sought in the case.

Media watchdogs have been calling on Ukrainian authorities to investigate complaints of intimidation and attacks against journalists from the Skhemy (Schemes) program, a joint investigative project by RFE/RL and UA: Pershy television, after one of their cars was torched in Kyiv on August 17.

Investigators have concluded that the fire was caused by "an external ignition source."

No one was hurt in the incident.

But the International and European federations of journalists said on August 18 that a campaign of harassment and intimidation, including surveillance and arson attacks, were aimed at "muzzling" the journalists' investigations.

"It is essential that investigative journalists can freely and critically report on corruption and wrongdoing of state officials," IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger said.

"Surveillance and the attack against this team are worrisome blows against press freedom that can't go unpunished," Bellanger said. "We stand in solidarity with the victimized journalists and call on the authorities to protect them from these attacks."

The Committee to Protect Journalists has urged Ukrainian authorities to find the perpetrators of the arson attack and "hold them to account."

Schemes reporters were recently working on a story revealing how the transport of high-level state officials breaks traffic rules.

During the production of the program, the journalists repeatedly voiced concerns about being under surveillance.

Schemes reporter Mykhaylo Tkach said earlier in August that he found what he thought were signs of hidden-microphone surveillance in his apartment.

"Authorities also must thoroughly investigate the surveillance allegations" made by Tkach, according to Gulnoza Said, the CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.

"By reporting on corruption, investigative journalists at 'Schemes' are doing an important service for the public, and the authorities should ensure their safety," Said added.

RFE/RL acting President Daisy Sindelar has expressed concern about the arson attack.

While no one was injured, Sindelar said, "this incident appears aimed at intimidating RFE/RL's reporters and contributing to a threatening environment for journalists across Ukraine."

"Schemes is an award-winning investigative team whose work is vital to the public interest of all Ukrainians," Sindelar said. "We urge Ukrainian authorities to ensure that our colleagues can work safely and without fear."