If I were writing about kittens, I’d be talking about how cute they are.

— So now Putin has thanked Transneft, and Stepashin says there was no embezzlement—what have you actually achieved?

— I wasn’t born yesterday—I understand that Stepashin couldn’t exactly say, “Sorry, we hid everything; in fact, they stole it all.” What I’m satisfied with is that no one is disputing my document, so it’s obvious to everyone that the Accounts Chamber is covering for the crooks at Transneft. And it’s already clear that they won’t be able to fool anyone—not even with Putin backing them. My post was read by 300,000 people on the first day. My goal is informational: out of Russia’s 45 million internet users, I want at least 10 million to find out how brazenly we were all robbed. I understand how the police, prosecutors, and courts will keep batting us away, but we’re going to keep doing this anyway. And I believe the time will come when all these crooks—both those who stole and those who covered it up—will be in prison.

— Why are you doing this at all? Why do you care more than anyone else?

— If someone picks your pocket on a trolleybus, do you go to the police? These same people are stealing our children’s future. The country has no future because the whole system is built on theft. The top political leadership delegates to governors and mayors the right to steal as much as they want, and in return they hand over political loyalty and power. In practice, that means rigging elections. And as a result of all this looting, Russia—despite receiving enormous sums of money since 1999—remains a poor country, while having the world’s second-largest number of billionaires. These people are burning the country alive.

— So minority shareholder rights are just a convenient tool for you in the fight against corruption?

— I’ve never denied that I’m simply using a convenient legal instrument. Since I’m a minority shareholder in these companies, that gives me the ability to defend my own interests. In Russia, you can’t file lawsuits on behalf of an undefined group of people. You can only defend your own interests—and that’s what I’m doing. But all these companies have huge state stakes, and you are just as much a co-owner of them as I am. The only difference is that if you showed up in court like that, they’d tell you, “Close the door on your way out—you have no formal rights here.” But corruption in companies with large state ownership, where top officials sit on the board, is corruption in the state itself, including at the highest level. I’m not prepared to say that suitcases of cash are personally delivered to Putin—or more likely whole cartloads of money by now—but there’s no doubt that he personally provides political cover.

— Then what are your political demands?

— I try to avoid sweeping demands, but broader ones often follow from my specific demands. Using Transneft as an example, I’m demanding that all future mega-projects—the APEC summit, the Olympics, Nord Stream and South Stream, and many others involving trillions of rubles—be subject to new standards of transparency and spending oversight. Otherwise they’ll just steal everything again.

— Can you imagine a Russia without corruption?

— I can, and I don’t think that’s naïve. All this talk about corruption having deep cultural roots is complete nonsense. Georgia was the most corrupt country in the USSR, but a great deal was changed in a fairly short time. I’m very skeptical about Saakashvili, but even now it’s clear that a lot was accomplished.

— Don’t you think the level of competence and responsibility here is such that without constant self-interest, nothing at all would get done?

— We’ll be fine—we’re not Nigeria. Look at Estonia: they managed it. Are we somehow stupider than Estonians? I don’t believe Russia is a hopeless country—if I did, I wouldn’t be doing this. Take our telecommunications companies that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange: the scale of corruption there is about ten times smaller than at Gazprom. If Megafon and Beeline can manage it, why can’t Transneft?

— Aren’t you concerned that you might simply be used in internal corporate power struggles?

— It doesn’t concern me. Of course, any case I take up can be used—and is used—in clan infighting at Gazprom or Transneft. These are huge structures where there’s constant warfare, and a criminal case against one faction always benefits another—but I don’t give a damn about that. My principle is: give me the money to buy the rope I’ll hang you with. People leak compromising material to me all the time; I check it, and if it’s real, we move it forward. I can’t stop every time to think about who benefits—Vainshtok, Sechin, or someone else. If I see documents showing that money was stolen, I file a complaint with the police.

— The simplest question: aren’t you afraid?

— No, I’m not.

— Why not? Oleg Kashin was beaten over matters where, it seems, far less money was at stake.

— Anyone in Russia who fights injustice can end up under threat. Even a journalist at *Afisha* (a Russian magazine) can—if he writes about some shady restaurant cartel. I’m a normal person, I understand where I live, and I’m careful. First and foremost, I verify my sources. I’m wary—but I’m not afraid. If I were afraid, I wouldn’t be doing this.

— But you have children, a family...

— Well, what can you do? You have to endure it. Someone has to do this.

— Filing complaints is generally not a very respected thing in Russia. Don’t you feel that the local environment rejects you?

— On the contrary, I think people are actually starved for something practical. That’s why they support me: I offer concrete solutions. There are a hundred thousand people writing that everything everywhere has been stolen. Go to compromat.ru, or any newspaper—you’ll find completely truthful information about massive theft. But nobody does anything, while I do. The Transneft post got 7,000 comments, and I think 3,000 people filed complaints along with me. So people do support me. And those complaints, by the way, aren’t anonymous—which means they have to share some of the risk with me. That’s what inspires me most.

— You’ve chosen a format where you constantly have to be outraged. Isn’t that psychologically exhausting?

— Well, I’m not writing about kittens. If I were writing about kittens, I’d be talking about how cute they are. But I’m a lawyer, and I write about things that are usually outrageous. And this isn’t some act—I’m not dramatizing anything. I genuinely hate all these people. That money was stolen from me, and yes, sometimes my emotions really do overflow.

— That’s exactly what I’m asking: how do you cope with it?

— I’m not slashing my wrists. My outrage gets turned into concrete steps. I get angry—but I don’t just shout, “Crooks!” I name those crooks, I publish their photos, I prepare a complaint for the police—I go to the police; the police question me and refuse to open a case—I sue them, force them to open one, go through the courts, try to bring in foreign shareholders, and so on. In other words, raw emotion gets transformed into a cold-blooded plan of what needs to be done.

— And does that make you feel better?

— It makes everyone feel better.