Leonid Nevzlin

Leonid Borisovich Nevzlin (; , born 21 September 1959) is a Russian-born 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". Professional career 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.