Leonid Nevzlin

Russian born Jewish politician and businessman

Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin (Леони́д Бори́сович Не́взлин; , 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. In 2003, the Russian state expropriated Yukos and began a campaign of persecution against its executives. 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 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".

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.

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. 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 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." and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nevzlin called the court case a show trial orchestrated by Vladimir Putin. The former Yukos shareholders were awarded damages totaling $50 billion – the largest arbitration award in history. As the biggest shareholder of GML, the former Yukos holding company that brought the legal case, with a 70 per cent stake, Nevzlin stands to be the biggest single beneficiary from The Hague's ruling. The Russian government failed to meet the deadline of 15 January 2015 for paying the award. Early news reports indicated that the former Yukos investors would seek redress by asking U. S. and EU courts to seize Russian owned assets on their own territories.

Nevzlin was awarded the Order of Friendship, one of the Russian Federation's highest honors, for his efforts in supporting Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign in 1996. Nevzlin has served on the board of governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the board of trustees of Keren Hayesod, the United Israel Appeal, and as associate chairman of the board of directors of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. Nevzlin is also a long term supporter of Israeli healthcare charity Ezra LeMarpeh.

Nevzlin was born in Moscow on 21 September 1959 into a family of Lithuanian Jewish origin. He graduated from the Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas in 1981, and earned an MA from the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, majoring in management and marketing. Nevzlin has married three times and has five children including Irina Nevzlin, chair of the board of directors at Beit Hatfutsot. Through Irina, he is the father in law of Israeli politician Yuli Edelstein. In 2014, Nevzlin acquired an apartment in the new, upscale Waldorf Astoria hotel/apartment complex in the center of Jerusalem at a cost of 40 million shekels (approximately US$11.5 million).

Nevzlin is the author of the two books "Человек с рублём" ("Man with a Ruble", coauthored with Mikhail Khodorkovsky), in praise of free market economics, and "Public Relations – кому это надо?” ("Public Relations – Who Needs Them?”).

Chelovek s rublyom. (en: The man with the Rubel. ), with Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Moscow: Menatep Inform 1992,