Dmitry Rogozyn asked to check the banker Fridman’s support for the Ukrainian Armed Forces

Dmitry Rogozin, a member of the Federation Council from the Zaporozhye region occupied by Russia and the former head of Roscosmos, turned to the Investigative Committee with a request to check the activities of banker Mikhail Fridman for involvement in the financing of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He did not say what exactly aroused Rogozin’s suspicions.

Rogozin clarified that he also sent appeals to the FSB and the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Presumably, the reason could be Friedman’s statement, which he made in September last year. Then the businessman offered to donate one billion dollars from his own funds to the restoration of Ukraine in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions.

Earlier, Ivan Otrakovsky, the leader of the “Army of Defenders of the Fatherland” movement, appealed to the Prosecutor General’s Office with a request to check Fridman. He claims that the businessman and his business partner Petr Aven, seeking the lifting of US and EU sanctions, transferred 150 million euros to help Ukraine. Friedman may face a case under the articles of discrediting the army and treason. The latter provides for punishment up to life imprisonment.

The Security Service of Ukraine, for its part, in September notified the Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman in absentia about the suspicion of financing Russian aggression. According to the SBU, since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Fridman “poured” about two billion rubles into Russian military factories. Among other things, they produce cartridges and equipment for combat aircraft and helicopters.

The SBU claims that to finance the war, the oligarch uses the assets of the financial and investment consortium “Alfa Group” under his control, as well as his own business resources. According to the presented suspicions, Fridman faces up to eight years in prison with confiscation of property.

• Mikhail Fridman, the co-founder of Alfa-Bank, is under sanctions from the USA, Canada, the European Union and Great Britain.
• Friedman did not publicly support the war, but he did not condemn the actions of the Russian authorities either. His name appears in the investigation of the “Project” about oligarchs who did not publicly speak about the war, but continue to earn on contracts with the Ministry of Defense.
• On October 9, Mikhail Fridman said that he had moved from Great Britain to Israel, but because of the hostilities that had begun there, he is currently in Moscow, and in the future he intends to visit Russia regularly.

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