Leonid Nevzlin

Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin (Леони́д Бори́сович Не́взлин; לאוניד בוריסוביץ' נבזלין, born 21 September 1959) is an Israeli businessman, investor, and philanthropist.

Nevzlin occupied various high-ranking positions at Group Menatep and its subsidiary, the Yukos Oil Company.

From 1981 to 1987, Nevzlin was a software engineer at Zarubezhgeologia, an external trade organization of the Soviet Ministry of Geology.

In 1987, he met Mikhail Khodorkovsky and became a deputy director at the Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth (MENATEP), attached to the Komsomol committee in Moscow's Frunzensky District, [[Moscow|Frunzensky District]].

MENATEP established one of the first private banks in Russia, Bank Menatep.

From 1989 to 1991, Nevzlin served as president of the bank, after which he held other high-ranking positions, including vice chairman of the board (1993–1996) and head of public relations (1994–1996).

Nevzlin also worked at Group Menatep, focusing on corporate communications, government relations, and human resources.

In April 1996 he became vice president of Yukos, in which Menatep had acquired a 78% share in December 1995.

From September 1997 to October 1998, Nevzlin served as first deputy director general of the Russian news agency ITAR TASS, creating a plan to gradually transform it into a joint-stock company.

In April 1998, Nevzlin became first vice chairman of Bank Menatep.

In 1999 he became first vice chairman of the board of directors of Yukos.

From November 2001 to March 2003, he represented the Republic of Mordovia as a senator in the Federation Council of Russia.

In 2003, the Russian state expropriated Yukos and began a campaign of persecution against its executives.

From June to November 2003, he served as the rector of the Russian State University for the Humanities.

In 2003 and 2004, Nevzlin was featured on Forbes magazine's list of the world's 100 wealthiest people.

In 2003, following prolonged clashes with the Kremlin, Yukos' controlling shareholder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and another senior executive, Platon Lebedev, were arrested on charges of fraud and tax evasion.

Nevzlin left Russia for Israel in 2003.

In 2004 the Russian Prosecutor General's Office sought Nevzlin's extradition over hotly disputed criminal allegations against him related to his tenure at Yukos.

The Israeli government rejected the extradition request due to insufficient evidence.

Two members of the Israeli public who felt aggrieved by their government's decision sued to have it reversed.

They also petitioned the interior minister to revoke Nevzlin's Israeli citizenship on the grounds that it was obtained under false pretenses.

Nevzlin's attorney, David Libai, argued that the charges against him were the result of political persecution.

A spokesman for Nevzlin stated in reaction to the extradition request, "Amnesty International, the European Parliament, and the court in the UK, are only some of the bodies that have found that Russian president Vladimir Putin is persecuting Mikhail Khodorovsky, Leonid Nevzlin, and the other shareholders in Yukos, who dared to support democratic opposition parties and openly come out against him. Putin does not hesitate to make use of the Russian authorities that are subordinate to him to create false charges – in the best tradition of the KGB, in which Putin grew up."

Both were convicted in 2005 following trials that were widely condemned internationally as procedurally flawed and politically motivated.

Khodorkovsky was found guilty and the sentence for tax evasion and fraud was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights for the same affair.

Yukos' assets were subsequently awarded to state-owned companies in a series of forced auctions.

Yukos was declared bankrupt in August 2006.

Nevzlin was tried in absentia in Russia in March 2008, found guilty of several counts of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In May 2008, Israel's Supreme Court found there was no evidence directly connecting Nevzlin to the criminal allegations made against him.

The court rejected extradition and denied the motion to strip Nevzlin of his citizenship.

Israel's interior minister and attorney general were ordered to pay Nevzlin's court costs for this case.

Nevzlin was tried in absentia in Russia in March 2008, found guilty of several counts of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Nevzlin called the court case a show trial orchestrated by Vladimir Putin.

In 2010, his wealth was estimated at US$1.3 billion.

Nevzlin is a co-owner and board member of Haaretz, one of Israel's liberal newspaper publishers, having purchased a 20% stake in the company in 2011 for 140 million shekels.

Members of the Schocken family, descendants of the newspaper's founders, retain a 60 percent stake in the company.

In 2014, the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of Nevzlin and other Yukos shareholders, calling the actions of the Russian state "a ruthless campaign to destroy Yukos and to expropriate its assets".

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Nevzlin renounced his Russian citizenship, stating that: "Everything that Putin touches dies. Russian citizenship itself has become a mark of disgrace that I no longer want to bear".

In 2014, Nevzlin founded the monthly Hebrew-language magazine "Liberal", which publishes analyses of Israeli political life, communications and culture.

The inaugural issue appeared in May 2014.