AlfaInsurance, a company owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, provides car insurance for units of the National Guard that fight in Ukraine, Skhemy (Radio Liberty) reports.
Mikhail Fridman. Photo: LetterOne Group
The research project has found contracts signed by Fridman’s company and the National Guard on the Russian state procurement website.
“Over the past five years, the National Guard has become one of the biggest state contractors of AlfaInsurance’s services. Its central division signed contracts with Fridman’s company worth 100 million rubles (€1.15 million). And in total in Russia, no less than 280 million (€3.2 million),” the investigation says.
The journalists have also managed to find out that the units of the Russian Guard that signed contracts with AlfaInsurance, are taking part in the Ukraine War. Investigators found photographs of military equipment on the Internet that were published in the media with the captions “Russian Guard soldiers are returning home,” and then they checked the number plates in the state register of car owners. Some of them belonged to units that contracted with AlfaInsurance.
Screenshot: Skhemy
Fridman’s company provides compulsory insurance to the security forces. In case of a car accident, the organisation has to bear the cost of car repairs worth up to 400,000 rubles (€4,600), and also to cover the costs of paying compensation to victims in the amount of up to 500,000 rubles (€5,725).
The journalists contacted the AlfaInsurance company and were told that the compulsory insurance is not yet valid in the occupied territories of Ukraine. “The information we have is that it is not valid until 1 January 2024. And after that, nobody knows how the hostilities will go,” the company’s call centre said.
It was revealed earlier that Mikhail Fridman had persuaded many Russian oppositionists to sign letters to the European Commission with a request to lift sanctions against the leaders of Alfa Group. One of those letters was published on 8 March by Alexey Venediktov, former editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow.
The letter was asking to remove restrictions for Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven, Alexey Kuzmichev and German Khan, making a point that businessmen are not connected with the Russianstate, and are also major investors in the Ukrainian economy.
The document was signed by ACF’s head Leonid Volkov, TV Rain co-founders Natalia Sindeeva and Vera Krichevskaya, ex-Vice Prime Minister of Russia Alfred Koch, opposition politician Leonid Gozman, journalists Sergey Parkhomenko and Leonid Parfenov, businessman Yevgeny Chichvarkin and economist Vladislav Inozemtsev.
After the letter was published, Volkov apologised and announced that he would be taking a break from his “public socio-political activities in the capacity of the chairman of the board of the ACF International Foundation”.
In addition, many Russian opposition figures also said they had signed similar letters, for example, imprisoned politician Ilya Yashin and Elena Zhemkova, director of Memorial, which was liquidated by the Russian authorities.
