Navalny ally quits after call to ditch sanctions on tycoons

A CLOSE ally of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has resigned from his post and apologised for asking the European Union’s foreign policy chief to lift sanctions on four Russian tycoons.

Leonid Volkov said in a statement that he was stepping down as chairman of Mr Navalny’s Anti-corruption Foundation after a radio host published a letter in which Mr Volkov had called on the EU to lift the sanctions from Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Alexei Kuzmichev and Petr Aven.

Mr Volkov published a letter he had sent to Josep Borrell in October, saying the sanctions against the Kremlin were ineffective as they became a “one-way ticket” for Russian billionaires that “does not encourage them to ... speak up against Putin’s war”. Rather it would “more likely push the designated person into Putin’s arms”. Yesterday he called the letter “a big political mistake”.

The tycoons named did not openly oppose the Kremlin’s invasion but they left Russia shortly after it and voiced vague condemnation of the bloodshed.