One of the main donors to the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) of Alexei Navalny, businessman and philanthropist Boris Zimin, has announced a desire to reduce the size of his regular contributions to the organization, which recently amounted to $1 million a year. He stated this in an interview with journalist Elizaveta Osetinskaya.
In a conversation with The Insider, Boris Zimin said that the decision to cut FBK funding was made back in mid-2022:
“A political (and indeed any) organization should not be dependent on large donors. At one time in the Russian Federation, when the “law enforcement” system of the country drove the FBK underground, persecuting even small donors, it was necessary to violate the “canon”, but now the FBK is outside the Russian Federation, and the organization has no obstacles in building relationships with supporters, at least those who are also out of reach of the “bodies”. And for me, to be honest, the status of a major donor to a political (and any other) organization is not very comfortable. I am ready to lend a shoulder in difficult times, but not for life.
Zimin has previously said that he may reduce his donations if he is not satisfied with the way the foundation works. In an interview with Osetinskaya, he suggested that FBK make more efforts in crowdfunding.
Zimin called letters to the European Commission signed by the former head of the FBK, Leonid Volkov, in favor of two Russian oligarchs: Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, as well as other Russians with large assets, a “disaster”. It listed the reasons why the sanctions that were imposed on them after the Russian attack on Ukraine should be lifted from these individuals.
Zimin signed the "Declaration of Russian Democratic Forces" condemning the war unleashed by Russia in Ukraine, which was adopted in Berlin at a meeting of Russian opposition figures initiated by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Navalny's supporters from the FBK did not sign it without explanation.