A search is underway at the apartment of Vladimir Ashurkov, the executive director of our Anti-Corruption Foundation. An investigator from the Investigative Committee and operatives from the FSB are there. I got a text from him saying, "The Investigative Committee is outside the door." On my way over, I kept racking my brain: what on earth could they be looking for at his place, and in connection with what case? Apparently, the most accurate answer came from Pasha Elizarov, who runs the website "Bolotnaya Case" (about the prosecutions tied to the Bolotnaya Square protests):
That’s exactly right. The search at Volodya’s place is being carried out as part of probably the most absurd of all the cases the Investigative Committee has fabricated against me: the SPS case. Everything about it is just wonderful: the Investigative Committee claims that I stole some unimaginable millions from SPS. There is no injured party in the case. All the leaders of the various parts of SPS (who, by the way, are not exactly on friendly terms with one another) are saying in unison: are you out of your minds? This is complete nonsense. Nemtsov. Gozman. Belykh. Gaidar. Nevertheless, the case is moving right along. So far, the Investigative Committee has not yet worked up the nerve to charge me, and in the case I am still a witness, but trifles like a total lack of evidence and victims have never bothered Bastrykin, the Czech spy and, incidentally, Russia’s chief investigator. The search of Ashurkov’s apartment—given that he didn’t even know me back during the SPS election campaign (2007)—perfectly characterizes both this investigation and the case itself. You should have seen Volodya’s face when they told him they were looking for documents related to the "SPS case." Something like this. What is the real goal? Well, it’s not exactly rocket science. Seize all the equipment, dig through it, and find something interesting and/or compromising. Plant some kind of bug in the apartment. Paralyze the work of our Foundation. I already spend my days being dragged to the Investigative Committee; now he’ll be doing it too. Intimidate him personally. Intimidate the Foundation’s donors and RosPil. More generally, spread fear. It’s from that same playbook, sorry to say. As in: we are Putin’s bloody Nazgûl, be afraid of us. We are lawless thugs, crawl under your beds. All these fake criminal cases, and above all the "May 6 case" (the prosecutions over the 2012 Bolotnaya protest), are for exactly that purpose. It’s fine. We are ready for this, and we urge everyone else to be ready for it too. Our wonderful Volodya Ashurkov, who gave up the comfortable life of a top manager at Alfa in order to work at the ACF, knew what he was getting into and is prepared for this kind of thing. P.S. People are asking: can they seize information from Ashurkov about ACF donors? My answer: there’s nothing to seize in the first place. The Foundation is funded completely openly. Anyone can see the names. And besides, RosPil is funded through micro-donations by around 25,000 people. They can try searching every one of them. Update. Well, there you have it, just as predicted. The lawyer present during the search reports that they are seizing all computers and similar equipment. A written motion requesting that these computers be turned on, examined, and checked to see whether they contain anything of interest to the investigation was denied. The Investigative Committee "specialist" present during the search said that "they have to be seized because turning on the computers could lead to loss of information." Apparently they might explode, like in old Fantômas movies.