The owner of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant (NLMK), billionaire Vladimir Lisin, began to threaten a lawsuit against journalists who published news based on material that refugees from Mariupol who got a job at his plant were handed summons to war.
Threats from the lawyer were received by the editors of the Sota publication and the ChTD Telegram channel. He vowed to "take action in accordance with applicable law" against channels that do not publish a retraction of the news based on the Nestka article.
On October 7, the publication published material about the Mariupol refugees who now live in Lipetsk. With reference to one of the refugees, Verstka reported that the summonses were distributed to men working at the Lisinsk plant and who received Russian citizenship under a simplified procedure. On October 12, the publication published a post stating that the press service of NLMK had contacted him and stated that no summons had been handed over to the refugees and that the company had allegedly carried out "a personal check, as a result of which they did not find those who were mobilized." Journalists noted that so far they consider only the fact of issuing subpoenas to Ukrainian refugees living in the Lipetsk region to be reliable.
The ChTD channel later clarified its material, but this was not enough for Lisin's representatives. According to the editors, Lisin, apparently, is “so afraid of sanctions” that his lawyer insists on refuting the news. Sota said they were perplexed why Lisin "considers the fact of mobilization of NLMK employees discrediting, regardless of their former place of residence."
Billionaire Vladimir Lisin in April spoke publicly for the first time about the war in Ukraine – and spoke negatively. Sanctions, he said, "may seem arbitrarily unfair, with elements of collective responsibility, but people will try to stop the loss of life and the destruction of cities by any means available."
In September, the Schemes project and Radio Liberty published an investigation from which it follows that Russian tankers continue to supply oil to the EU countries, despite the sanctions imposed on servicing Russian ships in European ports. With reference to data from the MarineTraffic service, it was claimed that over the past months, 13 ships with a capacity of 4-5 thousand tons went along the same route: loaded in the ports of the Black or Azov Seas, and then set off towards the Romanian city of Constanta. They do not reach the port for 17-20 miles, and after parking they return to Russia empty.
According to the investigation, all these tankers belong to the Volga Shipping company of the billionaire Lisin. After the outbreak of the war, unlike other Russian oligarchs, he did not fall under the sanctions of either the EU, the US, or the UK. Only Australia imposed them on him.