Rumor has it that the trials of the participants in the YUKOS affair are going to resume in the fall. A former lawyer with the law office ALM Feldmans, Pavel Ivlev, who is part of this case, spoke to Bolshoi Gorod about the moment he fled Russia, who else was arrested because of his move, and what he intends to change in Russia, in order to return.
© Alexander Maslov
Nadezhda Pomerantseva: Do you consider yourself a political refugee?
Pavel Ivlev: There is no question that I do consider myself a political refugee, but not in the legal sense of the term. I never applied for a political refugee status — I simply had no need for it. I had an American green card long before I ran away from Russia.
N.P.: How did you get one?
P.I.: My wife won it in a lottery many years ago, all the way back in 1995. My father was already living in America then. For several years in a row he was sending out envelopes for us to participate in the lottery. I remember I was studying in London then…
N.P.: You’re not from an ordinary family, then, are you Pavel…?
P.I.: I am from a simple family. Yes, I was studying in London in 1995, but it was because I was participating in an educational program for young lawyers arranged and paid for by the British Council. I simply filled out the British Council application forms and submitted them.
N.P.: But, in reality, you are a political refugee?
P.I.: Factually — yes. I ran away because of big political proceedings in Russia, even though initially I was not planning on leaving the country. I was quite happy there at the time: I had a job I loved in Moscow. A year and a half ago, I obtained U.S. citizenship. But the history with YUKOS had a negative impact on this process too—the matter was dragged out because of the reason I fled. To the best of my knowledge, the decision to grant me American citizenship was adopted at a sufficiently high level and was preceded by many months of correspondence between the State Department and immigration services. You must understand that there is a completely different view of Russia here. Since the time the country began to rebuild itself during perestroika, the United States also changed its attitude toward Russia. And when Putin came to power in the early 2000s, Americans did not understand how seriously everything had changed, and to which extent. Therefore, if you ran away from Russia in the first half of the 2000s, for the American agencies you are first and foremost a criminal who wants to evade justice in the motherland. After all, U.S. officials don’t understand to which extent [Vladimir Putin’s] prosecution on the part of a “democratic country” is illegal. It is a huge misconception, to think that the American government needs us at all — they need us like a hole in the head, so to speak. Here they’ve got their own massive bureaucratic system, and as long as you’re not a citizen, to them you’re a second-class person who came to the great country of America. So go ahead and prove that you deserve to remain here.
N.P.: What was your official reason for leaving Russia? What charges were lodged against you?
P.I.: The charges are simple: I was accused of having stolen oil in huge quantities and of laundering it afterwards. Officially they called it something like embezzlement — either of oil or of the proceeds from its sale. It takes a long time to explain. The Russian Criminal Code articles involved were numbers 160 and 174.
N.P.: How many years in prison could you be facing in total?
P.I.: According to the current rules, a maximum of ten years.
N.P.: Has a criminal case been opened against you?
P.I.: There is a criminal case against everybody who bears any relation to YUKOS. I’ve got the same charges as [Mikhail] Khodorkovsky, [Platon] Lebedev, [Vasily] Shakhnovsky, etc. There are very many of us. An entire list of “accomplices” in the charge against Khodorkovsky, and I am on that list.
