A court in Orel has granted the investigation’s request to arrest Ilya Startsev, a US citizen and English teacher, in the case of donations to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the Sever. Realities” with reference to Startsev’s acquaintances.
Startsev was detained in Moscow on September 6, after which there was no contact with him. His acquaintances learned about his arrest in the morning of September 7.
On September 6, law enforcement agencies conducted searches in several regions of Russia in the case of FBK donations. Russian media reported that Ilya Startsev in Moscow, Gleb Kalinychev in Nizhny Novgorod and Andrei Novokreshchenykh in Krasnoyarsk were detained.
Ilya Startsev, 36, is an English teacher. As a child, he and his parents lived in the United States, where he obtained American citizenship. In adulthood he returned to Russia. According to his acquaintances, Startsev supported politician Alexei Navalny during his 2018 presidential campaign. About the financing of the FBK from his side, the interlocutors of “Sever. Realia” do not know anything.
In June 2021, the Moscow City Court declared FBK and other structures associated with politician Alexei Navalny “extremist.” After that, Russian courts fined two Russians 500 thousand rubles each because of donations to Navalny’s structures. As Mediazona wrote, investigators found out the identities of the people who donated money to FBK due to a technical failure in the Stripe service. The journalists claimed that due to the malfunction, law enforcers learned the names of six FBK donors.