Attention: this is not a drill. We are shutting down the Anti-Corruption Foundation.
You know how stores often do this, with huge letters saying: LIQUIDATION SALE. STORE CLOSING. FINAL SALE. People fall for this advertising trick, rush to buy supposedly discounted goods, but in reality no one is closing.
In our case, though, we really are forced to say that the non-profit organization “Anti-Corruption Foundation,” which I founded nine years ago, has come to an end, because it has simply been taken away from us.
And I am recording this very important video so that they do not take you away along with it. And for that, we will need your help.
Here is what is happening. Last summer, you and I decided to take on United Russia, Putin, and Sobyanin in Moscow. We put forward our own candidates, and we launched Smart Voting to support opposition deputies. We published investigations into all the key United Russia figures in Moscow and drove their ratings down.
In response, the Kremlin and the mayor’s office barred all independent candidates from the election, knowing they would win.
In response, we called everyone into the streets.
The Kremlin responded by jailing the independent candidates, me, and a whole lot of other people, and by crushing the protests. And then we released even more investigations and said that Smart Voting would still work, so that as few United Russia members as possible would become deputies.
And we won then. Only through fraud and rigged electronic voting was the government able to preserve its majority of seats, but now in the Moscow City Duma—for the first time in its history—there is a very large group of genuine opposition deputies working in our interests.
After that, Putin started stamping his feet and shouting: shut it down! liquidate it!
He got scared. Because if you and I, without money, without independent candidates, without access to the media, without the machinery of the state, and under conditions of fraud, almost beat him—then what happens tomorrow?
And so the order went out to liquidate both the ACF and our regional headquarters at any cost. We went through several raids. Hundreds of simultaneous searches across the country. And this happened several times in a row. Each time, they seized everything from us: from phones and laptops to light fixtures and kettles. We were unlawfully declared foreign agents, even though we had never received a single kopek from abroad. Criminal cases were fabricated against us. The bank accounts of both the ACF and all our other legal entities were frozen. They froze the accounts of hundreds of employees and their family members. In my case, they froze the accounts of me, my father, my mother, my wife, and even my children.
We were sued by the National Guard, the police, the prosecutor’s office, GKU “Automobile Roads” (a Moscow municipal road agency), restaurants whose business was disrupted by our rallies, and even the Moscow Metro. As a result, all the independent deputies and ACF staff who had called on people to attend the rallies ended up owing millions of rubles. This is a tactic Putin borrowed from Lukashenko. In Belarus, this is how they have long fought protests.
We are now raising money to pay these fines, and with your help we will raise it.
But there was also a separate episode that was assigned to Yevgeny Prigozhin. Putin’s very own chef. A thief who has been working with Putin since their St. Petersburg days, and who has now been put in charge of Defense Ministry contracts and of supplying food for
all Moscow schools and kindergartens.
The fact is that Prigozhin, in an effort to make more money, was supplying children with spoiled food. As a result, there were mass food poisonings in Moscow schools and kindergartens. All of this was being covered up, but our colleague Lyubov Sobol took up the case. She brought together groups of parents of the affected children and began filing lawsuits and conducting investigations on their behalf.
And in the end, she proved it all.
Together with dozens of parents, she filed a class-action lawsuit against the companies responsible for the poisonings and the Moscow authorities that had signed the catering contracts, demanding official recognition of the poisonings and compensation payments. The court found the companies at fault and partially granted the financial claims of the parents of the affected children.
And then came something that could happen only in a Putin court. Despite the fact that we proved the poisonings. Despite the fact that Prigozhin paid compensation under court order. He sues me, Sobol, and the ACF, claims he poisoned no one, and demands an absurd sum from us—88 million rubles. And the judge, acting under clear instructions to destroy the ACF at any cost, bangs the gavel and says: Prigozhin is right. Who cares that he paid compensation? Who cares that the facts of poisoning by his food have been acknowledged by everyone? You must pay him 88 million rubles.
The special irony is that after poisoning hundreds of children, he paid them 300,000 rubles in compensation, while we—the ones who forced him to pay—are supposed to pay him 293 times more.
So here is the result. These are screenshots from the Federal Bailiff Service website showing that I owe 29 million rubles, Sobol owes 29 million rubles, and the ACF owes 29 million rubles.
As for me and Sobol, nothing can really be done anymore. The amount is enormous, and I do not even see the point of trying to raise it. Until the end of Putin’s rule, we will have to live with blocked accounts and bailiffs seizing whatever property we have in favor of Putin’s chef.
Now the question is: what do we do with the ACF? We already have nothing left as it is. Everything was taken during the previous searches. And now they will take the organization itself and its bank account as well. Our name matters to us, but as I have said many times: the ACF is not an office and not a piece of paper from the Justice Ministry. The ACF is people. It is those who come here to fight corruption—and you, who support it.
We will move to another legal entity, and let Putin and Prigozhin choke on that. But we need to take our greatest value—you—with us. Why is it that we do not answer to anyone, no one gives us orders, and no one can influence us? Because we are financially independent. We do not need oligarchs, the state, or foreign backers. Over the past year, 21,467 people donated to us. And most importantly, our real treasure is the 7,607 people subscribed to monthly payments. That is, they registered on our website and have automatic payments set up—some give 100 rubles, some 500, some 1,000. And we know that no matter what happens, we receive about 6 million rubles every month, enough to cover office rent, internet, and at least part of our salaries.
Now they are going to take away our bank account, and those 7,607 subscriptions will disappear.
We cannot transfer them automatically. The only thing that can be done here is for you, guys, to go to this link yourselves and set up a recurring payment again. Let it be small, but steady, so that we understand what budget we have and can plan our work.
I got to this point in writing and realized that it still turned out like that marketing trick. We announced liquidation, but then asked for money and said everything would remain.
But in reality, whether anything remains, and on what scale, is up to you. Ella Pamfilova thinks it really stings when she calls us “political beggars.” But no. We are proud that we ask you for money and depend on you. At least we do not take a single kopek from the state budget. At least our finances are transparent.
And so, dear Ella Alexandrovna, remember this yourself and pass it on to Putin as well: we are asking again, we hope we will receive it, and we promise everyone that every last kopek will go toward bringing closer the moment when you, all of your United Russia party, and the entire Kremlin gang will be sitting in the dock. And until that happens, we will still do our best to give you a hard time at the polls.
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