10 September 2025
On RBK’s extensive interview with Prosecutor General Krasnov
By Leonid Nikitinsky
Source: Novaya Gazeta
On 15 September, the High Qualification Collegium of Judges will decide whether to nominate Igor Krasnov for the position of Chair of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. No one will dare to reject his candidacy, but the sincerity of the judicial community’s support for him is another matter.
Meanwhile Krasnov, still in office as Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, gave a lengthy interview to RosBiznesKonsalting (RBK) on 8 September, in which he managed to say nothing new, partly repeating the speech he gave at the St. Petersburg Legal Forum in June. Perhaps the conversation was more substantive, but the text was carefully edited during the approval process.
Nevertheless, we can draw some conclusions from this interview, the timing of which is quite symbolic.
Krasnov says nothing at all about such an important part of the work of the prosecutor’s office as the confirmation of indictments by investigative bodies and the presentation of the prosecution for the state in court. His interview also says nothing about the Prosecutor General’s Office’s lawsuits filed with the Supreme Court, about the designation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s headquarters* as extremist organisations, or about the liquidation of the International Memorial Society.**
Nor did Igor Viktorovich touch upon such a function of the Prosecutor General’s Office as the designation of international and foreign organisations as undesirable in the Russian Federation, which criminalises cooperation with them.
Such specific one-sidedness can be explained by the fact that RBK is a business publication, but the interviewee probably retained in the text what he believes the prosecutor’s office has the right to be proud of, and Krasnov sees it primarily as an instrument for state regulation of the economy. He talks in detail, in particular, about how prosecutors are fighting ‘price gouging’ and unjustified increases in utility rates. It is a just cause, but if the prosecutor’s office is the leading organisation in this field, shortages and the black market are inevitable.
Of course, RBK asked about the nationalisation of private assets. ‘Has a list of criteria been drawn up according to which privatisation can be declared illegal?’ asks the interviewer (his surname is not given). The future chair of the Supreme Court carefully avoids answering this question:
“I have said many times: we are not involved in reviewing privatisation in Russia. Prosecutors conduct investigations and prepare appropriate lawsuits in connection with established facts of corruption, illegal operations with shares, deliberate bankruptcy and other criminal activities. This primarily concerns strategic and systemically important enterprises, especially those under foreign control…”
In reality, the Prosecutor General’s Office is much more actively involved in deprivatisation than Krasnov suggests in his interview with RBK. Analysts at the law firm Nektorov, Savelyev and Partners (NSP) have already identified more than 100 lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office in district and arbitration courts in various regions concerning the transfer of large shareholdings from private to state ownership.
An immediate basis for the seizure of property is illegal privatisation, including that which was agreed upon by regional authorities instead of federal ones. This category also includes cases in which the prosecutor’s office challenges the transfer of property under a lease agreement with the right of purchase: the arguments boil down to the fact that the property could only have been transferred in the process of privatisation and must be returned to the ownership of the Russian Federation.
The courts do not examine the issues of good faith or possible compensation in the acquisition of shares in this category of cases: regardless of when and how the shareholding was acquired, it will be seized because the property was illegally removed from the ownership of the Russian Federation.
A total of 24 companies lost their property in this way, including industrial enterprises and land plots, 34 sanatoriums belonging to Kavminvod, the velodrome in Krylatskoe in Moscow, and other facilities.
Another ground is so-called corruption violations specified under the law of 3 December 2012 ‘On oversight of the correspondence of the expenses of persons in public office and other persons with their income.’ This ground applies to those who continued commercial activities while holding public office or being a member of representative bodies at various levels of government. Twenty-six such assets have been seized at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the most notable of which are Rolf JSC, Makfa and others.
Meanwhile, in the 2000s and 2010s, it was normal and even fashionable to combine business with a deputy’s mandate, including in the State Duma, so there are still many potential victims of this type of nationalisation. In October 2024, the Constitutional Court clarified that in such corruption cases, the statute of limitations for claims by the Prosecutor General’s Office does not apply.
Another ground for seizure of property is the owners’ participation in ‘extremist’ activities, with eight such cases so far. Among those whose property has been seized have mostly been Ukrainian citizens owning the property in the Russian Federation, but not only. Tverskoi district court in Moscow is shortly to hear a lawsuit against the Shtengelovs (father and son) (see my report on the website of 6 September), even though they have not been recognised as the creators of an ‘extremist association’ in criminal proceedings.
Finally, based on lawsuits filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office, the property of ‘strategic companies’ is being seized if their participants include individuals with foreign (including dual) citizenship, or if part of the property is registered offshore. Such enterprises already include Domodedovo Airport, Kaliningrad commercial port and others, a total of 15 companies. Meanwhile, it would be easier to say which large enterprises did not use offshore companies and which of their owners had not acquired a second passport just in case.
The most striking thing about the NSP study is the figures: the entire nationalisation process, from the moment the Prosecutor General’s Office files a lawsuit to the entry of the new owner, the Russian Federation, in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, takes an average of two months, and cases are usually heard in a single session. Meanwhile, in all cases, we are talking about large properties, a change in the status of which can entail so-called ‘externalities’ — consequences for hundreds of employees, owners of individual shares, suppliers and creditors, as well as other third parties whose interests are not taken into account at all in the nationalisation process.
This is the instrument that Prosecutor General Krasnov is leaving to his successor. Isn’t that a pity? When asked by RBK what prompted him to apply for the position of chair of the Supreme Court, the 44-year-old candidate responded as evasively as possible: ‘Time will put everything in its place. Let’s leave it at that for now.’
When all strategic decisions are made by one person, it turns out that it is not so important who holds which position, as long as the president accepts them and consults with them. Krasnov was part of this narrow circle in his previous position and will be part of it in his new one. Strategically, the Kremlin, looking towards the future further nationalisation of the economy, will lose nothing by this appointment.
* The organisation is recognised as extremist and its activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation.
** The Russian authorities consider it a ‘foreign agent.’
Translated by Rights in Russia
