From the BBC World Service.

He said he was hecker.

So many millions of dollars.

It's got to be North Korea.

How in the world did this happen?

The Lazarus Heist.

Episode 1 is available now.

Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today has spent the last seven years in political exile in London.

Throughout that time, his attention has remained firmly focused on the politics of his homeland, Russia. Vladimir Ashurkov was and

is a close friend and ally of Russia's most significant opposition figure and anti-corruption

campaigner Alexi Navalny.

Ashurkov had begun his career in banking. He became a key organizer and fundraiser for

Navalny as he stepped up efforts to expose endemic corruption in Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

By 2014, the authorities were investigating Ashurkov and he fled with his family to the UK.

He was accused of embezzlement and put on a Russian wanted list. So now his activism is conducted at a distance.

And he's had to watch from afar as his friend Navalny survived an assassination attempt only to be locked up when he

voluntarily returned to Russia after medical treatment in Germany.

Navalny is now refusing to eat in protest at his medical treatment.

Thousands of his supporters have protested in a show of solidarity and international condemnation

of Putin and the Kremlin is growing. But Russia's president seems determined to crush his

most dangerous opponent. Does Navalny's movement have any cards left to play? Well, Vladimir

...