Republican senators Roger Wicker, Mark Rubio, Cory Gardner and Lindsey Graham demand to impose sanctions against Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov and Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. Their demands are contained in a letter to Secretary of State Raks Tillerson, Finance Minister Stephen Mnuchin and National Intelligence Director Dan Coates, which is published on the website of the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The senators say that Chaika and Usmanov are involved in corruption, referring to the materials of Novaya Gazeta, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, Alexei Navalny and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Usmanov's senators are represented as "one of the most influential Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin and having a share in leading media." Referring to ICIJ documents, The New York Times and The Guardian, senators write about $ 200 million of investments in Facebook and $ 85 million donated by Usmanov in favor of the fund, allegedly connected with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. At the last payment, the senators look like "One of the forms of bribery".

In March 2017, Aleksei Navalny issued an investigation about Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev "He is not Dimon". In this investigation, the oppositionist said that the transfer of Usmanov 4.3 hectares in the village of Znamenskoe (near the Rublevo-Uspenskoe highway) to the Fund for Support of Socially Significant State Projects is a bribe to Medvedev. According to FBK, the fund is managed by people close to the premiere. The team Navalnogo estimated the estate at 5 billion rubles.

In April 2017, Usmanov filed a lawsuit against Navalny, in which the statements of FBK were disputed. On May 31, the Lublin court granted this claim. According to the court decision, Navalny had to post a refutation of the information discrediting Usmanov, and the investigation itself "He does not want you to Dimon" to remove. But Navalny said that he was not going to execute the court's decisions.

"The inclusion of a Russian businessman of this level in the sanctions list will undoubtedly entail a high degree of emergence of known risks for all members of his family, proxies, partners, and even former partners and associated with him significant personal relationships," said partner Paragon Advice Group Alexander Zakharov.

In the case of Chaika, the senators describe the results of the investigation of Novaya Gazeta and the Anti-Corruption Foundation, according to which "close relatives of Chaika and relatives of other senior officials of the Prosecutor General's Office are involved in business relations with Avilon." In particular, as it is supposed in the letter, we are talking about contracts for the supply of cars for state needs, including the Prosecutor General's Office itself, as well as the partnership of the co-owner of Avilona Kamo Avagumyan with Artem Chaika (the son of the Prosecutor General) in a Greek five-star hotel.

Also, senators point to the alleged connection between the former wife of Deputy Prosecutor General Gennady Lopatin - Olga - with a Greek hotel and even a criminal group in the village of Kuschevka.