The case card on the court's website was found by The Insider. The lawsuit was registered on September 24. The substance of the claims is not disclosed in the card, and there are no official comments from the court or the Prosecutor General's Office.
Kommersant reported that the deputy prosecutor general filed the suit. The defendants, besides Turlov himself, are Arkady Shchukin, who manages his assets in Russia, and the companies V-Empirical Holding Corp., Freedom Holding Corp. and Freedom Finance Europe Ltd.
Sources cited by Kommersant say the lawsuit may be aimed at designating Turlov and the other defendants as extremists. Such a status would allow the prosecutor's office to convert their Russian assets into state revenue.
The newspaper links the claims to Turlov's donations to Ukraine: according to Kazakh and Ukrainian media, he transferred 1 billion tenge (more than $2 million) to Ukraine's embassy in Kazakhstan for the purchase of humanitarian aid, and another 371 million 566 thousand tenge (more than $720,000) to a Kazakh charity fund supporting Ukraine. Freedom Holding, according to the same reports, sent 2 million euros to buy ambulances. The donations went through the UNITED24 platform.
Turlov, 38, a Moscow native, renounced his Russian citizenship after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and obtained a Kazakh passport. He sold his Russian assets to Maxim Povalishin, deputy general director and member of the board of directors of Freedom Finance. Forbes estimated the businessman's fortune at $7.4 billion, and Freedom Holding's assets this spring stood at $13 billion.
Freedom Holding's press service told RBC it did not understand the substance or the validity of the lawsuit, and noted that the company has no assets in Russia.
On September 26, Turlov was elected FIDE president, succeeding Arkady Dvorkovich, who suspended his powers after being placed under EU sanctions. Agentstvo, citing sources, reported that Turlov secured Vladimir Putin's support in the election: the request came from Kassym-Jomart Tokayev at a July meeting in Sochi, and the Russian president agreed to help. On September 29, Dmitry Peskov congratulated Turlov on his election.