Evgeniy Rybin Entrepreneur. Country: Russia

Biography of Evgeny Rybin

Evgeny Lvovich Rybin is an entrepreneur and the managing director of the Austrian company "East Petroleum Handels". He gained attention as a victim in the case against former security officer of "YUKOS", Alexei Pichugin. According to media reports, Rybin had worked for 20 years in the structures of the Ministry of Fuel and Energy of the USSR and Russia until 1994. In 1994, a group of Swiss investment companies invited him to lead the Austrian firm "East Petroleum Handels", where Rybin became the managing director with authority to sign financial documents. Utilizing Rybin's experience and connections, the foreigners planned to enter the Russian oil market. "East Petroleum Handels" entered into a contract with the company "Tomskneft", but in 1997, after the latter was acquired by "YUKOS", the contract with the Austrians was terminated.

Rybin claimed that "East Petroleum Handels" had invested around $50 million (around $60 million according to other sources) in contracts related to the oil fields being developed by "Tomskneft". Additionally, the Swiss company was a shareholder of the Achinsk oil refinery, "Tomskneft", and the "Eastern Oil Company", but with the help of the "YUKOS" management, all the shares "were devalued". In the summer of 1998, "East Petroleum Handels" filed a lawsuit in the Vienna Arbitration Court against the "Tomskneft" company for $83 million (including the invested funds and the lost profits). According to other reports, the managing director of "East Petroleum Handels" demanded nearly $100 million in compensation from the management of "YUKOS".

On November 24, 1998, Rybin survived the first assassination attempt when he was shot at with an automatic weapon. According to other reports, this happened in January 1998. In March 1999, Rybin's car was fired upon with rocket-propelled grenades (according to other sources, the road was rigged with mines). As a result of the attack, Rybin's driver was killed (according to other reports, one of his bodyguards was killed). In April 1999, the Vienna Arbitration Court rejected "East Petroleum Handels'" claim against "Tomskneft". In November 2000, a former paratrooper from Volgograd, Evgeny Reshetnikov, was convicted in relation to the first assassination attempt on Rybin. Reshetnikov was identified as the perpetrator. However, the customers behind the attack were not identified, and the involvement of "YUKOS" representatives could not be proven.

In May 2003, the investigation into the case was reopened and transferred to the Prosecutor General's Office. In the same year, there were reports that former employee of the security service of "YUKOS", Alexei Pichugin, could be charged with organizing the assassination attempt on Rybin. Pichugin was arrested in June 2003 on suspicion of organizing the murders of businessman Sergei Gorin and his wife, as well as organizing a series of assassination attempts, including one on former employee of "MENATEP" Olga Kostina.

In July 2004, former vice-president of "YUKOS", Leonid Nevzlin, accused Rybin of extortion. Nevzlin sent a letter to the Russian Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, stating that Rybin, with the help of law enforcement officers, sought false witnesses and falsified materials against "YUKOS", including the case against Pichugin, taking advantage of the fact that he was already in the Lefortovo pretrial detention center. Two days after Nevzlin submitted his statement to the Prosecutor General, the Basmanny Court of Moscow issued an arrest warrant for the businessman. According to several media outlets, Rybin attempted to obtain money from the "YUKOS" management in order to settle with his creditors who had attempted on his life.

In April 2005, the Prosecutor General's Office charged Pichugin, who had already been sentenced to 20 years in prison in March of the same year, with organizing two assassination attempts on entrepreneur Rybin, as well as organizing the murder of entrepreneur Valentina Korneeva. The trial began in March, and in July, Pichugin was additionally charged with the murder of the head of the administration of Nefteyugansk, Yuri Petukhov, and his bodyguard. In August 2006, the Moscow City Court sentenced Pichugin to 24 years in prison.

After the verdict was announced, Rybin stated that he was only partially satisfied with it, as the former leaders of "YUKOS", Nevzlin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whom he named as the organizers of the crimes, "had not received punishment for the spilled blood".