Putin's chef sues Navalny, his ally for defamation citing 'moral injury' to business

A Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, dubbed as Putin’s chef on December 22 said that he aims to collect 5 million rubles (approx. $66,000) from Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny after he sued Navalny and his ally Lyubov Sobol. Prigozhin who’s known for organising Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dinners with foreign dignitaries had won a lawsuit against Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK). Navalny’s foundation, known for conducting high-profile investigations into alleged corruption of top government officials, had uploaded a video investigation against the catering magnate Prigozhin that prompted him to file a defamation lawsuit that appeared on the website of a Moscow court, according to a Russian news agency Kommersant. 

As per the Moscow court ruling, Navalny was ordered to pay the alleged protege of the Russian President for accusing his food catering company of poisoning the children in Moscow schools and kindergartens in his video in 2019. The court sided with the plaintiffs as it debunked Navalny’s allegations against Putin’s Chef as ‘defamatory’ and baseless, and ordered the Kremlin critic to pay hefty fines. Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) has faced a tremendous number of lawsuits as he targeted high-profile Russian politicians, businessmen, and Bureaucrats in his investigations such as former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Oleg Deripaska.  With charges cleared against it in the court, the school-lunch provider company associated with Yevgeny Prigozhin is now seeking compensation from FBK, Navalny and his ally Lyubov Sobol. 

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Ruling 'in the interest of Putin'

In October, the  Justice Ministry had blacklisted the FBK under Russia’s “foreign agent”, and had frozen Navalny’s bank accounts, raided his political network, and seized his apartment in an investigation related to money laundering. Navalny’s firm FBK, meanwhile, accused Russia’s  Investigative Committee and another firm named VITO-1, that it linked with a case of children food poisoning in 2018. “They poisoned children in schools and kindergartens. Cases of dysentery have been documented. However, we should pay,” Navalny tweeted. He added, that the court’s ruling in favour of Putin’s chef was a part of a political ploy “to strangle FBK in the interest of the chief bureaucrat - Putin.” According to a OCCRP report, Prigozhin operated the popular St. Petersburg “troll farm” and continues to work for several pro-Putin media operations. He also has links with the private Russian military contractor in Putin’s administration involved in conflicts across Syria, Libya, and eastern Ukraine. 

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