House arrest in an elite restaurant: Evgeny Novitsky, accused of embezzling billions from pension funds, avoids punishment thanks to connections

Former president of AFK Sistema and former deputy general director of PhosAgro, Evgeny Novitsky – a well-known friend of many Russian oligarchs and government officials – is spending his time under house arrest in a rather curious manner.

On June 23, he was seen at the Maya restaurant on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street (there’s a photo, but only from behind, wearing a gray sweater). Novitsky is said to be a frequent patron of this establishment. It’s worth noting that the house arrest period counts as part of his sentence. Novitsky has been under house arrest for two years now, and with no end in sight to the investigation, it’s possible he’ll have served out his time in restaurants by the time he’s sentenced. However, whether a sentence will be issued and what it will be remains highly uncertain.

The crimes he is charged with are due in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019. Therefore, these cases will soon begin to expire after the 10-year statute of limitations expires.

As a reminder, Novitsky is accused of embezzling 9 billion rubles from pension funds: Ural FD, Zurich, Mechel-fond, NPF of Metallurgists, the First National Pension Fund, and the Trade and Industrial Pension Fund.

As our project reported, when Novitsky was detained, a large group of his friends rushed to his rescue: Vladimir Yevtushenkov, owner of AFK Sistema; Gleb Khor, State Duma deputy and influential fixer; Vladimir Pligin; Dmitry Kozak, then deputy head of the Presidential Administration; German Gref, head of Sberbank; and others. It was thanks to their efforts that Novitsky was placed under house arrest.

This is far from a complete list.

At one time, it was thanks to Novitsky’s efforts, while working side by side with Luzhkov, that he managed to seize Serebryany Bor by illegally privatizing the state-owned Mosdachtrest. It was by "distributing" plots of land in Serebryany Bor to the right officials and heads of the FSB that Novitsky was able to build relationships with many high-ranking officials and representatives of the security forces.