UK grants asylum to Russian dissident

The UK has granted political asylum to Vladimir Ashurkov, a Russian dissident and colleague of Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption crusader.

Mr Ashurkov and his partner Alexandrina Markvo fled to the UK last April shortly before Russian prosecutors claimed he had embezzled funds during Mr Navalny's failed 2013 Moscow mayoral election campaign.

Ms Markvo filed her own application for asylum earlier this year after Russian prosecutors claimed she had been involved in a separate embezzlement case related to a Moscow book fair. Ms Markvo's application is still being considered by UK authorities.

In an interview, Mr Ashurkov said he believed the criminal case against both himself and his wife suggested a disturbing trend in Russia: that Russian authorities were not only going after opposition leaders, but their family members.

"We have an inside joke in our family that we're unique," Mr Ashurkov said. "Two separate criminal cases against two people in the same family."

The dissident, 43, said that he was pleased his asylum request had been granted but expressed concern over the fate of his fellow political and civil activists in Moscow who were increasingly finding themselves the targets of Russian authorities.

"It's big news and a big relief for me to know that I have been granted asylum but my heart is with the people who are being detained in Russia," Mr Ashurkov said. "I feel safe but there are a lot of similarly minded people within Russia who do not feel safe and my heart goes out to them."

Since the start of Vladimir Putin's third presidential term, Russian authorities have launched a crackdown on Moscow's opposition movement in a bid to sideline some of the leaders of the 2011-2012 anti-Kremlin street protests.

Mr Navalny, who spent much of the past few months under house arrest, has found himself the defendant in a series of unrelated legal cases, many of which are ongoing.

Mr Navalny's brother Oleg is currently in a Moscow detention centre after prosecutors named him a co-conspirator - along with his political activist brother - in a money laundering and embezzlement case.

Konstantin Yankauskas, one of the co-defendants in Mr Ashurkov's case, has been placed under house arrest, while Nikolai Lyaskin, the second co-defendant, has been slapped with a travel ban.

Mr Ashurkov's CV is atypical for a Russian opposition leader. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Mr Ashurkov was working for oligarch Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group when he became acquainted with Mr Navalny's anti-corruption investigations of state companies and decided to start helping him.

At Alfa, Mr Ashurkov was director of asset management for CTF Holdings, an Alfa subsidiary, and a board member of X5, one of the country's largest food retail chains. After resigning from his executive post at the company, he began working full-time for Mr Navalny and is now the acting director of Mr Navalny's Anti-Corruption Fund. Mr Ashurkov has never run for public office in Russia.

"In the beginning it was quite innocuous. We were analysing potential corruption cases and writing letters to auditors of state owned companies pointing out various misdeeds. You wouldn't even call it politics. It was just civil activism," Mr Ashurkov said.

When the work turned more political at the beginning of 2012, the Alfa shareholders asked Mr Ashurkov to resign, a move he says he understands. "They had to deal with the authorities on a daily basis. They could not tolerate it because it was a risk for their business."

The dissident said he began to have concerns about his personal safety in Russia in March 2014.

Shortly after Mr Navalny was placed under house arrest, Russian authorities raided Mr Ashurkov's apartment. By that evening, Russian state television was airing footage of the supposedly confidential raid. Simultaneously, Mr Ashurkov noticed more surveillance of him. "I decided it would be more prudent to spend some time outside the country."

Mr Ashurkov said he was continuing to work with the anti-Kremlin opposition from abroad but noted that the movement had been rocked by the recent death of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov who was murdered in late February not far from the Kremlin.

"They chose as a target the most human person in the Russian opposition," Mr Ashurkov said. "I don't believe in conspiracy theories. But I think such crime would not be possible without some involvement of the Russian security services. How high it goes we'll only know in a couple of years."

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