The story of my fundraising for public and political projects is also the story of how the FSB (Federal Security Service), the Interior Ministry, the presidential administration, the Central Bank, and other crooks have tried to ban fundraising for such projects in Russia.
The first time this happened so openly was back in May 2011, after a successful fundraising drive for RosPil. The authorities went berserk because the independent anti-corruption project received 12,000 donations in its first weeks of operation. So first they claimed it was fake, and that all 12,366 small transfers had been made by some secret oligarch. Then the FSB seized payer data from Yandex.Money, after which those donors started receiving calls from members of the Nashi movement asking things like, “Do you really support Navalny?”
In fact, the result was exactly the opposite:
Everyone was finally convinced that RosPil — and later the ACF (Anti-Corruption Foundation) — really was funded by many thousands of people making small donations.
The “FSB crackdown” did not scare anyone off, and the number of transfers almost increased tenfold.
And every time it is the same: pressure on Yandex.Money and other payment systems, seizure of documents. After the mayoral election, a fabricated criminal case was opened claiming that Ashurkov, Lyaskin, and Yankauskas had stolen campaign funds. We wrote countless letters explaining that no one had stolen anything, that all transfers were fully transparent, public, and included in the campaign report. The case has neither a crime nor victims. Nevertheless, it is still formally “under investigation”: Lyaskin spent several years under travel restrictions, Yankauskas spent a year under house arrest, and Ashurkov was forced to leave the country.
Naturally, the “interests of the investigation” miraculously coincided with the interests of the presidential administration in banning or making it as difficult as possible for all three men to run election campaigns — or engage in political activity at all.
And of course, we expected that this time too the gang would come running to interfere with our fundraising (as of today, we have raised 12.7 million rubles).
We did not have to wait long. Just a week after the fundraising began, the good people at Yandex.Money honestly told us: guys, the Central Bank is calling us (Yandex.Money, as a payment system, is regulated by it) and demanding that we shut down Leonid Volkov’s wallet — the one we are using to collect donations — under any pretext.
When told, “But they are not violating anything,” Elvira Nabiullina’s staff replied: We don’t care — shut it down however you want.
We told the Yandex.Money team that we sympathized with them, were outraged by the pressure, but would not voluntarily shut anything down — the law is entirely on our side.
It should be noted here that fundraising for the ACF largely runs through Yandex.Checkout, a Yandex.Money service. They have always helped us and even developed a special form for everyone’s convenience, so we definitely do not want to quarrel with them and do want to keep cooperating — but we also cannot silently comply with unlawful demands.
For a while, nothing happened, but apparently the Kremlin could no longer tolerate our campaign’s growing numbers, and on Friday Volkov received the following letter:
Yandex.Money will unilaterally block the account because the regulator (the Central Bank) may think that we are violating the law.
So we are not violating the law, but what if the regulator thinks we are? And to make sure it does not think about it at all, let’s hurry up and shut it down.
In this connection, I want to state the following:
The actions of Central Bank employees amount to a criminal offense, and I demand that Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina explain herself on this matter. Elvira Sakhipzadovna has worked hard to maintain the image of a sophisticated Western-style liberal and to pointedly distance herself from the hellish trash routinely produced by the authorities. But here we see the Central Bank directly participating in that same kind of hellish trash, in exactly the way the FSB or the Investigative Committee usually does.
A choice has to be made. Either go to Davos and elegantly talk about how everything is governed by law, or welcome to the club of Yarovaya, Bastrykin, and the biker known as “The Surgeon.”
Here is my official appeal to Nabiullina.
Here is the statement from Leonid Volkov, the owner of the Yandex.Money account, on the matter.
We are very fond of both Yandex and Yandex.Money (which was bought by Sberbank — it is important to distinguish them, they are two different companies), as well as all Yandex employees. We understand that for many years they have had to put up with headaches because it is convenient for us to use their services. Nevertheless, we will not voluntarily close the account. We have not violated the terms of use, we have not broken the law, and there are no grounds for shutting us down.
Here is a legal analysis of the situation — take a look.
Accordingly, we propose that Yandex.Money create a conciliation commission — possibly with the participation of Central Bank lawyers — to review the legal aspects of this case.
On this issue, I also intend to formally appeal to German Gref, the head of Sberbank, which owns and manages Yandex.Money. At every public event, Mr. Gref speaks so enthusiastically about blockchain, bitcoin, electronic payments, and new technologies in general. Yet against that backdrop, his company is unlawfully depriving us of the right to use those very electronic payments.
I appeal to everyone: let’s vote with our wallets ~~against bad roads and negligence~~ against the brazen faces of those who spit on the law and want to decide who gets to take part in elections and who does not — whose campaign you are allowed to send money to, and whose you are not.
Obviously, the Kremlin absolutely hates our plans to open 77 campaign offices in 65 regions. What it wants is the usual kind of campaign, where presidential candidates do nothing and quietly wait for the TV debates, where they say their usual line: I generally support the president’s course, but the government is very bad.
We have different plans. Regardless of the outcome of the “Kirovles-2” trial, which has now picked up a breakneck pace, we are going to run a real election campaign. That requires money, and money is exactly what they are targeting.
Support us.
Here is the donation page.
We are also accepting bitcoin donations:
And yes — we are collecting donations via ordinary bank cards using the Yandex.Money service, because we have every right to use this service, just like every other user in the country. For now, Yandex.Money is still accepting payments, nothing has been blocked, and we hope it stays that way.
We will be grateful for a donation of any size, and every ruble you give will be spent effectively in the fight against the gang of lawless thugs who have seized power.
What economic growth through innovation are we even talking about? You can see for yourselves: they are ready to strangle electronic money services just to get in our way. They simply destroy everything around them that does not serve the purpose of keeping themselves in power.
And do not forget to add your signature in support of the nomination, if you have not already done so.