Romualdo Milani

Oligarch’s intimate meeting with human rights activist caught on video

Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov arrives at a French court under police protection on October 17, 2014.

A steaming video uploaded on YouTube last week has raised more than just a couple of eyebrows in Poland and Kazakhstan.

The controversial clip shows a couple engaged in sexual relations. But it’s not just any couple. The unidentified woman looks very much like a well-known Brussels human rights activist from Poland, Lyudmila Kozlovska. And her partner is a man who deeply resembles the infamous Kazakh oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov.

Kozlovska is known for her organisation Open Dialog Foundation, a group that is actively lobbying in the European Union against several European and Central Asian countries. According to unconfirmed reports, the group is partly funded by Ablyazov.

According to a statement issued by Polish journalist Yaroslav Yakimchik, an investigation is currently underway in Poland to check the activities of the Open Dialog Foundation. The journalist noted that the lobby group, which has offices in Warsaw, Kiev and Brussels, has become a subject of interest for authorities.

This interest grew after one of the directors of the foundation, Bartosh Kramek (Kozlovska’s husband) openly called for the overthrow of the Polish government.

As reported by Yakimchik, Open Dialog Foundation has called for the non-payment of taxes, mass demonstrations and strikes, the creation of tent cities with the immunity of deputies from the opposition, and the blocking of the premises of politicians.

The three-minute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW1kkuzGDfM (video) is titled “Mukhtar Ablyazov and his lobbyist Lyudmila Kozlovska” and has been viewed more than 120,000 times since being uploaded on June 13.

The video shows the Ablyazov look-alike, kissing and embracing a woman, who looks like Kozlovska.

“See adult sites for the full version,” reads the description posted on the video-sharing site. Journalists at the https://www.nur.kz/1737362-svidanie-ablazova-s-pravozasitnicej-iz-polsi-popalo-na-video.html (nur.kz news site) claim to have found the full 11-minute video on an adult site. The video is reportedly titled “A beautiful Ukrainian has sex with her boss”.

The article also states that they asked for a comment by Ablyazov on his Facebook page, but did not receive an answer.

The Open Dialog Foundation has been lobbying in support for Mukhtar Ablyazov in recent years. The group claims he is a political refugee. In 2012, Ablyazov was convicted in the UK and Kazakhstan for defrauding the Kazakh BTA bank of $6bn. He managed to escape to France before the prison sentence could commence.

According to a report by Polish analyst Marcin Rey, there is also a connection between the Open Dialog Foundation and the arms industry in Russia. Funds from a number of military contracts have reportedly been passed through the foundation in order to help them with their activities in Poland.

Ablyazov is also believed to have encroached on the state stability of Kyrgyzstan. In an interview with the French newspaper Libération in December 2016, he admitted to having financed a coup d’état there in 2005.

Explore more