Russia continues to infiltrate its agents into international organizations to influence its decisions

Russia continues to infiltrate its agents into international organizations to influence its decisions

In July 2023, we drew attention to the lobbying of corrupt deals in the interests of a Russian company affiliated with the Kremlin and providing air transportation for UN peacekeeping and humanitarian missions in Africa. Thus, we focused on MZS law firm, which provides legal services to the Russian delegation at the UN International Court of Justice.

According to the UN Secretariat, the Russians are lobbying for the participation of these lawyers in study group of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Sources are confident that Moscow’s lawyers from MZS (Kirill Udovichenko) is needed to influence the trial and discredit some evidence of Russians involvement.

We came to the conclusion that MZS had previously been involved by the Kremlin in court proceedings against Ukraine. For example, the company’s lawyers secured an arbitration court decision to recover more than €500,000 from Ukraine and to seize Ukrainian property worth more than $10 million in favor of the sanctioned VEB bank, which they managed to find in offshore jurisdictions. It was MZS lawyers who worked against Ukraine in the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCCAI) in a case of compensation following the expropriation of the ProminvestbankPJSC.

We are convinced that the company is closely connected with the Russia’s FSB. For instance, one of the company’s partners, Dmitry Lovyrev, is the son of a Colonel General of the 6th Human Resources Department of the FSB. Lovyrev is the President of the Dynamo volleyball club, which indicates close ties with Nikolai Patrushev, who recently left the post of the Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, but had been appointed to the position of presidential aide for shipbuilding, that goes beyond his competence. This connection is indirectly confirmed by the fact that MZS law firm advised Russian Agricultural Bank JSC on the Wall Street reform, where Patrushev’s son Dmitry is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

The MZS consulted VEB and five other banks on evading sanctions imposed on them by Ukraine in 2017.

Malofeev, a Russian oligarch close to President Putin with conservative views and associated with military intelligence, was married to Irina Vilter, a lawyer at Monastyrsky, Zyuba, Stepanov and Partners (MZS). Igor Girkin, who is accused of shooting down the MH-17 passenger airlines flight over Donbas in 2014, worked for Malofeev.In 2016, the Rosatom State Corporation choose the MZS for legal advice in criminal proceedings.