Russian oligarch Evgeny Prigozhin wins defamation case against ‘Navalny Live’ host
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A Moscow court has partially satisfied a lawsuit filed by Russian catering mogul Evgeny Prigozhin against opposition politician Vladimir Milov, the host of the YouTube show “Navalny Live.”
Prigozhin was seeking five million rubles (nearly $65,000) in compensation for moral damages after Milov called him a “gangster” (bandit) during a “Navalny Live” broadcast.
According to the Net Freedoms Project, which was founded by the Russian human rights groups Agora, the court reduced the compensation amount nearly 15 times over, ordering Milov to pay just 350,000 rubles (about $4,545) in damages.
The court also shot down Prigozhin’s request that it order Milov to “regularly express the opinion” that Prigozhin “isn’t a gangster” for the next three years, the Net Freedoms Project said.
Valentina Frolova, Milov’s lawyers, told Mediazona that they plan to challenge the court’s ruling.
In recent months, Evgeny Prigozhin has filed several defamation lawsuits against Alexey Navalny and his associates. In March 2021 alone, Moscow courts have ordered both Navalny and opposition figure Lyubov Sobol to pay Prigozhin 500,000 rubles (around $6,500) in compensation for slander.
(1) Who’s Evgeny Prigozhin
He’s a Russian business tycoon with major state contracts in catering and food production, as well as rumored assets in the private military industry and mass media market. Best known as “Vladimir Putin’s chef,” thanks to his reportedly close ties to the president, and his involvement with the “St. Petersburg troll factory,” Prigozhin has also been accused of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.