The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions against the companies of the curator of PMC Wagner Yevgeny Prigozhin and related structures and individuals. The list included, in particular, Alexander Sotov, who, according to the Dossier Center, is an accomplice in the murder of Russian journalists in the Central African Republic. The Insider found out that Sotov changed his last name, he is on the NSDC list under a new name – Alexander Volkhonsky, but his TIN remained the same.
On July 31, 2018, it became known that Russian journalists Orkhan Dzhemal, Alexander Rastorguev and Kirill Radchenko, who arrived in Africa to shoot a film about private military companies together with the Investigation Management Center, founded by the ex-head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky, were killed in the Central African Republic. .
The Dossier investigation into the circumstances of the death of journalists stated that on the day of the murder and the day before, Alexander Sotov called dozens of times with gendarme Emmanuel Kotofio, who was always in touch with their local driver. According to the investigation, Kotofio and the driver were at the scene of the murder.
In the Central African Republic, Sotov was allegedly an assistant to Valery Zakharov, a security adviser to the president of the republic and, as Fontanka wrote earlier, a native of law enforcement agencies. According to the publication, in St. Petersburg, Zakharov "collaborated with the security service of structures working in the interests of businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin."
Novaya Gazeta previously published documents according to which Sotov held the position of an instructor in outdoor surveillance, counter-surveillance, recruitment and undercover work in the Central African Republic. In March 2018, Artem Kozhin, Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, spoke about sending 170 Russian civilian instructors “to train CAR military personnel.”
Also, the name of Sotov was found in the list of Russian mercenaries who were allegedly in the Central African Republic on the day of the murder. The list was published by the Security Service of Ukraine at the end of December 2018.
The Prigozhin family, the two daughters of a businessman, Veronika and Polina, also fell under the restrictions. In addition, Ekaterina Prigozhina and another head of the Wagner PMC, Dmitry Utkin, are on the sanctions list.
Prigozhin's companies Concord Management and Consulting, Concord M, Power Plant, the Federal News Agency, PMC Wagner Center also fell under the NSDC sanctions. The restrictions were introduced for a period of ten years.