36-year-old Dmitry Zakhvatov, whose lawyer status has now been suspended, is well known in liberal circles. He defended members of the group Pussy Riot, who received prison sentences for insulting the feelings of believers, and Channel One employee Marina Ovsyannikova, sentenced in absentia to 8.5 years in prison for disseminating false information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
With the beginning of the North Military District, Zakhvatov himself took a pro-Ukrainian position, publicly criticizing the Russian army and government.
“My personal heroes are those people who avoided mobilization,” Zakhvatov said in an interview with Advokatskaya Street. “Who escaped from the troops who surrendered (AFU.
- RT
).”
“I cannot have sympathy for these people,” says Zakhvatov about those who went to the front.
In his interviews after immigration, Zakhvatov says that he earns little and is not interested in money, but defends those who are unfairly persecuted. However, the biography of the lawyer, which RT delved into, casts doubt on this.
Signs of "denomination"
According to the databases of legal entities “Kontur.Focus” and “SPARK”, in the 2010s Zakhvatov was a co-owner and director of nine commercial enterprises with an annual turnover of almost 1 billion rubles. Thus, from 2014 to 2016, he was the director of the Ikar advertising agency, whose annual revenue at that time reached 211 million rubles. The agency was part of the BV Media group, founded by the former head of the Russian Securities Market Commission Igor Kostikov. During the same period, Zakhvatov was listed as a co-owner of Eurokran Company LLC. In 2015, the company earned 283 million rubles.
There is only one legal entity in Zakhvatov’s list of firms. The rest were engaged in timber trade, construction, installation of heating systems, and cargo transportation. Almost all of them are now closed. Half did not submit reports and were forcibly liquidated, by decision of the Federal Tax Service.
However, this does not surprise experts. Every 30th company in Russia is registered to a nominal owner, RBC wrote. Unscrupulous businessmen deliberately place fictitious owners in their place, mostly lawyers who understand the laws and feel confident in contacts with government agencies.
If a person simultaneously manages five or more organizations, he can be recognized as a “mass director,” writes the authoritative profile portal Audit-It. There is no direct violation in this, but the attention of the tax authorities will be increased. “As a rule, in practice, companies with mass directors conduct fictitious activities in order to evade taxes,” the portal reports.
It is impossible to say that Zakhvatov was just such a director. However, some features of his biography make you think. One of them is the variety of activities that one-person firms engage in. Another marker is the young age of the founder. At the time of registration of legal entities, Zakhvatov was 25-26 years old.
If it is revealed that the company hired a “nominee”, then it will be forcibly expelled from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, and the participants face liability up to criminal liability, for example, for forgery of documents (Articles 173.1 and 173.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).
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For a good life
Since the spring of 2022, Zakhvatov has been living mainly abroad. In Moscow, he appeared only at the trial in the Ovsyannikova case. In August of that year, Ovsyannikova violated the terms of house arrest and flew to France. Zakhvatov reported this to the court, and soon he himself disappeared from public space. Later, his confession appeared in the media - it turns out that it was he who organized Ovsyannikova’s escape.
Now Zakhvatov’s status as a lawyer has been suspended, as is listed in the database of the Moscow Bar Association. According to media reports, this could have happened in connection with his role in the above-mentioned story.
In April 2022, Zakhvatov’s name surfaced in connection with the Lithuanian aid fund for Ukraine. It was opened in Vilnius by Maria Solenova, a former municipal deputy of the Tver district of Moscow from the Yabloko party. Then it was called EuropaLive and did not conduct public activities. But at the beginning of 2023, the fund changed its name to Action 4 Life (“Action for Life”) and announced a fundraiser for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In the “Team” section on the organization’s website there are two names – Zakhvatova and Solenova.
In August 2023, Zakhvatov announced that his foundation had closed its first fundraiser - Kyiv was promised a used Mitsubishi L200 Warrior pickup truck for €5 thousand.
© Action4life
According to the latest published accounts, only €150 passed through A4L accounts between April and December 2022. Another donation of $50 equivalent was received in cryptocurrency in September 2023.
Hand washes hand
Two months later, the A4L Foundation announced a “charity auction.” The event, which took place in Vilnius on November 8, was organized by Russian oppositionists, including participants in the so-called Free Russia Forum*** - grandmaster Garry Kasparov* and former State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev*.
The A4L Foundation reported the sale of several lots at auction, for example, a collection of stamps with the signatures of the President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny. For these positions they managed to earn €13.4 thousand and €8 thousand, respectively. But, as the investigative portal Prigovor.ru reported, almost all the large lots were bought by some organizers from others, that is, actually from themselves. So, the lot with “Zaluzhny stamps” was bought by Kasparov.
Another lot, according to the publication, could be bought by Leonid Nevzlin*. In recent years, he, like his ex-YUKOS partner Mikhail Khodorkovsky*, has been sponsoring opposition forces and liberal media.
Nevzlin provides institutional and material support to the A4L Foundation through his NGO Cooperation Democracy Foundation, founded in Lithuania. Brands and links to this fund are presented on the website of the Zakhvatov Foundation.
Earlier, RT told how in 2022 Mikhail Khodorkovsky* and a British foundation managed by Nevzlin’s daughter, Irina, spent $21 million on anti-war and anti-Russian initiatives. Opposition projects were implemented in close conjunction with the Anti-Corruption Foundation****, although Publicly, MBH and FBK engaged in heated debate and denied any connection.
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With a hint of scam
The modest activity of A4L speaks of the nominal nature of its work, notes Ivan Solovyov, Honored Lawyer of Russia, ex-deputy head of the legal department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. “Judging by his background, he is a fairly prudent, if not cunning, person who was looking for any opportunity to make money, and did not disdain projects with a scam flavor,” noted the Honored Lawyer of Russia.
It can be assumed, says Solovyov, that the opening of a non-profit organization in Lithuania was a mercantile step for the sake of obtaining the status of a “good Russian” in the eyes of the receiving party. “In Lithuania there are no longer “bad” and “good” Russians, all Russians there are bad,” says the expert. “In order to gain a foothold in the new country, to gain loyalty from the locals, he began to do such things - to pretend that he was helping the Armed Forces of Ukraine, but in fact he was trying to enter the orbit of rich Russophobes, like Nevzlin and Khodorkovsky, and arrange his own life.”
According to Solovyov, Zakhvatov’s main task is not to help the Ukrainian army, but to build a base for himself in Eastern Europe, and then move to Western Europe and from there apply for a residence permit or EU citizenship.
Achieving this will not be easy, since interest in Ukraine has fallen recently in the Baltics. Senior researcher at IMEMO RAS Sergei Rekeda, a specialist on the EAEU, and former editor-in-chief of the analytical portal RuBaltic, speaks about this.
“If at the beginning of 2022, organizations involved in helping Ukraine enjoyed a certain popularity in the Baltics, then by the beginning of 2024, this popularity, in my opinion, had noticeably decreased,” explained RT’s interlocutor. — In Eastern Europe, there is fatigue with the Ukrainian topic. Citizens are more focused on their own everyday problems than on big politics.”
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Criminal composition
Experts warn that sponsoring a fund that helps the Armed Forces of Ukraine (such as A4L) could result in criminal prosecution for Russians. “If the fund’s website clearly states that the assistance goes to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, then such an act for a Russian citizen can be classified as a criminal offense, up to and including high treason,” explains Stalin’s lawyer Gurevich.
Criminal cases based on such charges have already been initiated in Russia, recalls distinguished lawyer Ivan Solovyov. For example, on similar grounds, in February 2024, the FSB of the Russian Federation opened a case of high treason “in the form of going over to the enemy’s side” against ex-State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev*.
In addition, some battalions within the Armed Forces of Ukraine are recognized as extremist or terrorist organizations, the lawyer recalled. If the intelligence services prove that the money went to such battalions, a criminal case may be initiated for the financing of terrorism or extremism.
As of early February 2024, the A4L Foundation is not included in the register of undesirable organizations or foreign agents. Zakhvatov does not have a similar status. At the same time, access to the website and other resources of the lawyer is blocked by Roskomnadzor.
*Recognized as foreign agents by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation.
** An organization recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation by a decision of the Ministry of Justice dated February 13, 2023.
*** The Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) is included in the register of NPOs performing the functions of a foreign agent, by decision of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation dated October 9, 2019. The organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited by decision of the Moscow City Court dated June 9, 2021.