Well, you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting some description of an elaborate scheme.
Still, the details are interesting, because they show how easily anyone can be barred from leaving the country—a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
As the head of our legal department, Ivan Zhdanov, suspected, once you look at the “notice”, it’s obvious that the whole thing is fake and the paperwork is being backdated.
Only after I was prevented from boarding my flight to the European Court of Human Rights did this item appear on the website of the Kirov Region branch of the bailiff service (it wasn’t there last night):
This is the main incriminating document proving that everything was done deliberately to keep me from being at the ECHR specifically for the announcement of the ruling.
This is enforcement proceedings related to the “second Kirovles case” (a well-known Russian embezzlement case involving the state timber company Kirovles). I was fined 2.5 million rubles, but the authorities never actually tried to collect it. Yevgeny Chichvarkin had long ago provided that money, as he publicly stated. The arrangement was that he would provide the necessary sum, and I would pay him back after I won at the ECHR in the “second Kirovles” case, just as I won the first one. All this time, the money was held in my lawyer’s account, and we couldn’t pay it because there weren’t even any payment details for where to transfer it.
You see the date the enforcement proceedings began: 09.11.2018.
That fully proves that everything was handled on the basis of: “We were told to ban his departure, and we’ll come up with the reason afterward.”
Because by law, five days must be given for voluntary compliance with the bailiffs’ demands.
In other words, if the proceedings began on 09.11.2018, I had to be formally notified. Then the five-day period starts running. Only after that can any measures be taken—first of all, freezing a bank account.
And only after that, if nothing works, can a decision be issued restricting travel abroad. A letter is then sent to the border service. That alone takes about two weeks.
So, as you can see, even purely in theory—assuming I had refused to pay—my travel could only have been restricted starting on November 14 or 15.
But in my case, the enforcement proceedings begin on November 9, and by November 11 the border service already has all the paperwork saying I’m barred from leaving the country.
That is legally impossible. That’s exactly why they handed me this worthless scrap of paper, with neither a specific reason nor any time frame on it. But it does mention “UFSSP of Russia”—an agency that does not exist.
I’m genuinely curious why the Kremlin went so all-in and committed such blatant violations of the law just to stop me from attending the ECHR hearing.
After all, what exactly was supposed to happen there? My triumphant victory is far from certain. It’s not for nothing that the ECHR hasn’t issued rulings like this in 15 years.
If I win, the victory will be wonderful and important even if, physically, at that moment I’m not in Strasbourg but on Leninskaya Sloboda Street.
It’s also interesting what they’ll do next. The money was sitting in my lawyer’s account, so paying this fine was a matter of half an hour. It has already been paid.
So does that mean I’ll be able to leave tonight or tomorrow morning? Then what was the point of building this whole charade?
Putin’s regime is made up of malicious idiots. They stole all the money, they have power, and yet—they’re still idiots.