The document, titled "'Traitors to the Motherland': the strategy of intimidation and punishment used by the Russian Federation to suppress dissent at home and abroad," was published on October 15 under the number A/81/374. It cites the prosecution of former Rosnano executives as an example of politically motivated pressure on businesspeople.
Chubais confirmed to Ekho that he did write the letter. News of its existence had not been widely reported before.
Chubais's departure from the post of presidential special representative became known on March 23, 2022, when Reuters, citing two sources, reported that he had left over his disagreement with the invasion. Dmitry Peskov confirmed the resignation, saying the official had quit of his own accord. Putin signed the order dismissing him on March 25. Chubais did not publicly issue a detailed condemnation of the invasion in 2022.
The Insider established by comparing dates that on March 24, 2022, the new head of Rosnano, Sergei Kulikov, sent a letter to Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov asking him to examine the corporation's activities in 2010-2020, when Chubais ran it. That was the day after reports of his departure and a day before the dismissal order was signed. In the letter Kulikov cited the corporation's financial problems: according to his figures, under the previous management Rosnano raised more than 290 billion rubles in external borrowing, its debt to banks exceeded 146 billion rubles by the end of 2020, and debt-servicing costs in 2010-2021 came to about 126 billion rubles.
According to the UN report, criminal charges have been brought against at least 22 people connected to Rosnano. Civil suits have also been filed against former executives and employees of the corporation. In May, Chubais said the total value of the claims exceeded 25 billion rubles.
In April, former top manager Boris Galkin was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony. In September, the same term was handed to former managing director Andrei Kushnarev in a case over the embezzlement of more than 7.5 billion rubles during the creation of a microchip production line. Former managing director Irina Rapoport was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in a penal colony in a case over the embezzlement of about 1.6 billion rubles. The Insider previously reported that a court ordered former top managers to pay 11.9 billion rubles in the Crocus case and more than 5.5 billion rubles in the Plastic Logic case.
In May, Chubais called the criminal cases against former Rosnano employees repression and a mockery of the law, and the corporation's new management a "raider outfit." The defendants have also linked their cases to his refusal to return to Russia.
In January 2025, State Duma deputies Andrei Kartapolov and Andrei Lugovoi asked the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office to examine Chubais's activities. Lugovoi called him a traitor. The UN report separately notes that British authorities consider Lugovoi involved in the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London: a public inquiry found that Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun carried out the poisoning, probably acting under the direction of the FSB.
In August, Canadian authorities removed Chubais from their sanctions list after he appealed to the Federal Court. In his statement he described himself as a lifelong opponent of Putin and said he had been in voluntary exile since 2022 because of his disagreement with the war.