MANY RUSSIAN MERCENARIES NEVER EVER WILL RETURN TO THEIR HOMELAND WITH THEIR CORPSES LEFT BEHIND DEEP IN BAKHMUT DITCHES EITHER WAY MAKING FOR RUSSIAN BUDGET EASY WAY - PAYOUT IN A FORM OF CREMATION NOT EVEN HEALTHCARE. THOSE MERCENERIES, WAGNERS AS THEY CALL THEM, MOST OFTEN WERE PERSECUTED JAILED RUSSIANS FROM UNSTABLE ENVIRONMENTS AS PUTIN TOLD COMPARING IT ALL TO MYSELF WHO RETURNED FROM US IN 2006 IN SEARCH FOR EMPLOYMENT AGAIN IN SLOVENIA AND BACK AND FORTH.
possible and best way to delete owed is to turn betrayed into rebels) - Putin has new troops ready in Russia which one will use according to MK Ultra for march on Ukraine - these troops Putin stated, however, will not consist from people with disadvantaged background. ALL THEY WANTED IS TO MAKE IT UP FOR WHATEVER WAS STOLEN OUT OF THEIR LIVES BY RUSSIAN STATE - WHAT PUTIN WANTED AND WANTS WE ALL KNOW. UNDERSTANDING MY CASE, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THAT ANY OF YOU COULD HAVE BEEN CROPSES SCATTETED THROUGHOUT UKRAINE. AS FOR RUSSIAN GENERALS !!???? THEY UNDERSTAND MEANING OF WRITTEN HERE. Related to "Ghosts Of Sochi: Hundreds Killed In Olympic Construction"
PRESENT TO THIS WORLD. YOU ARE A SATAN. SAME METHODS AS TO WHICH APPLIED TO JOSEPH STALIN, BUT WEALTH NOT. SATANISM.
Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid the group’s pullout from the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia on Saturday night. (Photo: Reuters) WASHINGTON:...
Ghosts Of Sochi: Hundreds Killed In Olympic Construction
Russia's $50 billion Sochi Olympics required 70,000 migrant workers.'We Were Told To Be Careful -- That Was Our Training'
In Sochi, a contractor set the two young men to work at the Fisht Stadium, replacing power and video wires. "We were just laying the cables on the fences," Iura now tells Theblacksea.eu. "We weren't working with electricity."
The contractors promised Mihai and Iura that the proper employment papers were on the way. However, until they arrived, the pair waited at the checkpoint of the site for security guards to wander away, before they sneaked inside.
"We didn't have permits, so we couldn't always go to work," Iura says. "We took all the necessary steps. We were waiting to get them."
The pair wore gloves, but received no proper safety training, nor was there a qualified safety officer around. "We were told to be careful," Iura says. "That was our training."
On September 11, 2013, the men were working on the cables as usual, stretching them across long metal fences on the perimeter. Iura finished early and was cleaning up the site before lunch.
"Then I heard shouting," he says. "I could see the barbed wire above my head twitching. At first, I didn't realize what happened."
Despite assurances from site bosses that the electricity was off, a live cable left by another worker hung low on the fence. No one saw it. But somehow Mihai's head touched the cable, electrocuting him and throwing his body several meters back.
As Mihai's body turned blue, co-workers tried to revive him. But their efforts were futile. He died instantly.
With an ambulance and the police on the way and a dead body lying in the dirt, local security guards forced Iura and his co-workers away from the site. "They knew we didn't have permits, so they didn't want any problems," he says. The following day the police called him in for an interview.
"They asked a lot of questions," he says. "What happened? How did we get there? They kept asking about the work permits, but I didn't say much." The police released Iura without taking any formal statements.
Later that day Mihai's older sister Ana arrived in Sochi to identify the body. "I saw the shape of his face, his hair," she says. "He looked as though he was asleep."
Two days after Mihai's death, the police released his remains, promising to investigate the incident. Over one year later, the Russian authorities still have not provided the family with a report into Mihai's death.
Ana left the morgue with Mihai's body and several official documents, including a Russian death certificate, signed by two doctors from the coroner's office in the administrative headquarters in the city of Krasnodar.
The papers, obtained by Theblacksea.eu, include two key inaccuracies: That Mihai died on the construction site of the Formula One racetrack, also under construction in Sochi. And that he was "unemployed."
"He was designated as unemployed," Ana says, "but how is anyone supposed to believe that he just happened to be working there?"
'He Gave His Condolences -- Then Handed Me Cash'
The employers paid for Mihai's body to be flown home. At Sochi International Airport, a Russian man approached Ana. He never identified himself. The man passed Ana an envelope containing 300,000 rubles (around 6,000 euros then) for funeral expenses, with the promise of more.
"He just said 'Hello' and gave his condolences," she says, "then handed me some cash."
The man was from RZD Stroi, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, wholly owned by the Russian state and run by Vladimir Yakunin, a longtime Putin ally. Earlier this year the U.S. government included Yakunin on the list of individuals sanctioned over Russia's annexation of Crimea.
In 2010, Russian Railways became an official partner of Olympstroi, the Russian state corporation tasked with overseeing much of the contracting and construction for the Games.
Russian Railways was allocated around 23 percent of the Olympic budget -- 8 billion euros. But its tenure is marred by scandal and allegations of overpricing. In March this year, the Russian business paper Vedomosti reported that the company faced a 240 million-euro fine over RZD Stroi's failure to fulfil a contract for apartments in Sochi.
Russian Railways and RZD Stroi deny any involvement with Mihai's death, telling Theblacksea.eu that the company suffered only one fatality during construction in Sochi. On December 20, 2013, a man -- whom they refer to as a welder named "S.V. Bukhonov" -- died after the cradle of a crane fell on him.
The company ignored further questions about the deaths of Mihai and Bukhonov. At Mihai's funeral, one of his bosses told Mariana that RZD Stroi would provide ongoing financial help to her and Bogdan. She received one further payment of 600 euros (about $720). Then the money stopped.
Numbers Of Dead 'Do Not Add Up'
A 2013 Human Rights Watch report estimates that 70,000 migrant workers were involved in constructing the Sochi Games. Many suffered long hours, unpaid wages, and overcrowded accommodation. Some saw their passports confiscated by employers.
The true number of the working dead at the site is not known. But there is a disparity between the official figures and those of the workers' country of residence.
Earlier this year, Theblacksea.eu contacted Moldovan authorities requesting death certificates issued from Sochi.
The Interior Ministry collects data from families applying for state funds for burial costs. These records show that 33 Moldovans died in Sochi since 2009 and 19 between 2012 and 2013.
'He Gave His Condolences -- Then Handed Me Cash'
The employers paid for Mihai's body to be flown home. At Sochi International Airport, a Russian man approached Ana. He never identified himself. The man passed Ana an envelope containing 300,000 rubles (around 6,000 euros then) for funeral expenses, with the promise of more.
"He just said 'Hello' and gave his condolences," she says, "then handed me some cash."
The man was from RZD Stroi, a subsidiary of Russian Railways, wholly owned by the Russian state and run by Vladimir Yakunin, a longtime Putin ally. Earlier this year the U.S. government included Yakunin on the list of individuals sanctioned over Russia's annexation of Crimea.
In 2010, Russian Railways became an official partner of Olympstroi, the Russian state corporation tasked with overseeing much of the contracting and construction for the Games.
Russian Railways was allocated around 23 percent of the Olympic budget -- 8 billion euros. But its tenure is marred by scandal and allegations of overpricing. In March this year, the Russian business paper Vedomosti reported that the company faced a 240 million-euro fine over RZD Stroi's failure to fulfil a contract for apartments in Sochi.
Russian Railways and RZD Stroi deny any involvement with Mihai's death, telling Theblacksea.eu that the company suffered only one fatality during construction in Sochi. On December 20, 2013, a man -- whom they refer to as a welder named "S.V. Bukhonov" -- died after the cradle of a crane fell on him.
The company ignored further questions about the deaths of Mihai and Bukhonov. At Mihai's funeral, one of his bosses told Mariana that RZD Stroi would provide ongoing financial help to her and Bogdan. She received one further payment of 600 euros (about $720). Then the money stopped.
Numbers Of Dead 'Do Not Add Up'
A 2013 Human Rights Watch report estimates that 70,000 migrant workers were involved in constructing the Sochi Games. Many suffered long hours, unpaid wages, and overcrowded accommodation. Some saw their passports confiscated by employers.
The true number of the working dead at the site is not known. But there is a disparity between the official figures and those of the workers' country of residence.
Earlier this year, Theblacksea.eu contacted Moldovan authorities requesting death certificates issued from Sochi.
The Interior Ministry collects data from families applying for state funds for burial costs. These records show that 33 Moldovans died in Sochi since 2009 and 19 between 2012 and 2013.
"Health and safety measures were nonexistent," she says. "There were no safety personnel, as required. In Sochi, companies would just register an engineer as the safety person."
Kilic complained to her bosses. But the disregard for worker welfare came straight from the top. During one dispute, priorities were made clear when she was passed a diktat from Aytekin Gultekin, boss of Sembol Construction. "I was told by management: 'This is war. Everything is permitted,'" Kilic says. "'Those who will die, will die. And those who will be deported will be deported. What is important is completing the job.'"
Kilic also says this brutality extended to Uzbek women in Sochi, hired as cleaners, servers, and kitchen staff. She says sexual assault by management was widespread. "The men forced the women to sleep with them," she adds. "The whole atmosphere was disgusting."
A manager at Sembol, who asked to remain anonymous, confirmed to Theblacksea.eu that the rape and sexual assault of Uzbek women was frequent and conducted with impunity. "It was extremely, extremely common," he says. "Most cases do not go to court because Uzbek women are uneducated villagers working illegally. Management always turns a blind eye."
World Cup: A Defeat For Workers' Rights
On December 2, 2010, the FIFA Executive Committee voted in Zurich for Russia to host the 2018 World Cup. The tournament is set to take place across 11 cities, mostly in the west of the country.
It is another huge construction project, which Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev claims will cost around $25 billion. As with the Winter Olympics in Sochi, much of the hard lifting will fall onto the backs of migrants.
In the city of Samara, just north of the border with Kazakhstan, the Ministry for Labor, Employment, and Migration puts the number of migrant workers already at 56,000. Spread across the 11 cities, the total is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands.
But the Russian parliament has taken steps to ensure that the real figure might never be known. In July 2013, the government passed a law removing various provisions of the Labor Code afforded to World Cup 2018 workers, including migrants.
Applicable to all FIFA and Russian companies, contractors, and subcontractors associated with the tournament's building projects, it suspends workers' rights on overtime pay, working hours, and holidays. Additionally, it allows companies to hire -- and fire -- migrant workers without obtaining any permits from the state or informing the tax or migration authorities.
The law is of significant concern to international labor organizations, who say that it facilitates unaccountable migration and hiring practices -- even for forced or child labor.
According to Anna Bolsheva, policy and campaign officer for Building and Woodworkers' International, a Geneva-based member of the Global Union Federation, "officially" five World Cup workers have already died. "Unfortunately, it is difficult for migrant workers to get legal status in Russia," she tells Theblacksea.eu. "When they come to Russia they find themselves in a very vulnerable position.... And employers take advantage.
"In the Sochi Games, this advantage reached it maximum: rights of workers were brutally violated and it was not possible to find people who were responsible for these violations, including cases of death."
Search For Justice: Canceled
In Moldova, Ana explains how Mihai's family have lost hope of seeing Russian Railways in court over her brother's death. Legal experts advised against it, telling the family it would be too expensive and there was too much corruption in Russia to hope for a favorable outcome.
Two months after Mihai's death, his wife, Mariana, gave birth to their child, which she named Bogdan, as he wanted. "I don't want anyone to go to prison over this," Ana says. "But Mihai was all the support that Mariana had. He wanted to go to Sochi for three months until Bogdan was born. He wanted a place of his own and he was a really hard worker."
While at the morgue in Sochi, Ana met the families of three other Moldovan workers who had died on construction sites. They told Ana they were envious of her.
She was confused, until they explained that it was because she could fly her brother's body home. They had to drive the corpses of their men 1,200 kilometers around the Black Sea to give them the burial they deserved.
Originally published by Theblacksea.eu
Additional reporting by Stefan Candea and Zeynep Sentek
Photos used with permission of Rob Hornstra. See more of his work at The Sochi Project
This story was produced with support from Journalismfund.eu
RUSSIA: Elites’ families having a nice life in the West and sons not mobilized
RUSSIA: Elites’ families having a nice life in the West and sons not mobilized in the war
HRWF (12.06.2023) – Excerpts from Kyiv Post.
Children of Russia: Putin’s Daughters (By Aleksandra Klitina)
Kyiv Post (19.05.2023) – Russian officials are adept at delivering patriotic speeches that convey Russia’s supposed strength and integrity. Meanwhile, their own offspring appear to enjoy living on stolen money in Western countries, investing millions of dollars of laundered money in real estate and reaping the benefits of receiving an elite education.
For decades, Russian media and propaganda has promulgated the perception of a corrupt and rotting West. Yet the country’s leadership has continued to pump billions of dollars into the West to enjoy what the best of democracy can offer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is now one of the most closely studied people in the world in the wake of his country’s renewed invasion of Ukraine. Putin and his family are in the spotlight across the world’s media, as commentators try to cast light on his family life, including his children, which he has kept from the public spotlight even since before his presidency.
In April, the U.S. and the European Union approved a new package of economic sanctions against Russia “for its atrocities in Ukraine, including Bucha.”
The list of restrictive measures includes “full blocking sanctions against Putin’s adult children,” namely against his daughters, Ekaterina Tikhonova and Maria Vorontsova, who faced asset freezes and travel bans.
Printscreen of Tikhonova’s interview on the Russia 24 TV Channel, 2019
The sanctions documents note that Tikhonova is a top manager at the Innopraktika Foundation, which focuses on artificial intelligence and intelligent systems that work to support the Russian government and defense industry. Vorontsova runs genetic research programs that have received billions of dollars in funding from the Kremlin and are under Putin’s protectorate.
Tikhonova and Vorontsova were born during Putin’s marriage to former Aeroflot flight attendant Lyudmila Shkrebneva. Putin announced their divorce in 2013.
Their youngest daughter, Tikhonova, was born in 1986 in Dresden, when her father was working for the foreign intelligence service of the KGB. She studied at the Moscow and St. Petersburg State Institutes and has a PhD in Physics and Mathematics. Among Tikhonova’s hobbies are Japanese culture and acrobatic rock’n’roll dancing. At the 2013 World Championships, Tikhonova performed in the boogie-woogie class of an acrobatic rock’n’roll dance competition and took fifth place. (See picture in the original article of Kyiv Post)
Putin’s daughter married the son of one of his close friends, Kirill Shamalov. Soon, he became the second largest shareholder in the Russian petrochemical giant Sibur and, at the age of 32, became the youngest dollar billionaire in Russia with a fortune of $1.2 billion. The couple purchased a house in Rublyovka (a luxury village near Moscow) and a luxury house in French Biarritz, which cost more than 20 million euros. They divorced in 2018.
On May 19, a joint investigation into Important Stories and the German publication Der Spiegel concluded that the new partner of Tikhonova was a well-known artist, Igor Zelensky, based on information from four sources.
Zelensky is 52 years old. He is one of the most successful and famous ballet dancers from Russia. Zelensky was a soloist at the Mariinsky Theater, where he danced all the leading parts, then – at the premiere of the New York City Ballet.
Tikhonova has flown to Munich more than 50 times in the last two years. Zelensky has lived and worked in this city since 2016. At the end of 2019, Tikhonova was preparing to move to Germany.
Tikhonova worked in various positions at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, before heading up the Innopraktika Foundation from 2018. In 2019, she obtained a degree in physics and mathematics from the same university.
However, all scientific publications by Tikhonova are co-authored and she does not produce fully independent works. As a mathematician, Tikhonova’s study of the vestibular apparatus required detailed knowledge of the brain structure.
Maria Vorontsova – the elder of the two sisters – was born in St. Petersburg. She graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at Moscow University and the Faculty of Biology of St. Petersburg University, specializing in endocrinology. She was married to Russian-born Dutch businessman Jorrit Faassen, who served as the business development director of Gazprom. They lived with their children in a luxurious penthouse in Amsterdam. However, according to some recent reports, their marriage has collapsed.
In 2019, Vorontsova became co-owner of medical company Nomeko, which is involved in implementing the largest ever private investment project in the Russian healthcare sector aimed to fight cancer. The value of the medical complex of Nomeko is estimated at 40 billion rubles and Russian authorities allocated more than 200 billion rubles for genetic research under the leadership of Vorontsova.
Shoigu and his son (By Aleksandra Klitina)
Russian Army General Sergei Shoigu has never actually served in the armed forces, but that has not stopped him heading up the Ministry of Defense and holding a prestigious military rank.
Kyiv Post (27.05.2023) – Excerpts – He also advocates mandatory military conscription for instilling a “moral core,” yet Shoigu has never had to take part himself.
So, who is Sergei Shoigu and what do we know about the family of one of the most senior players in Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine?
Shoigu graduated from Krasnoyarsk Polytechnic Institute in 1977 and received a degree in civil engineering. Like many graduates of Soviet universities, he was awarded the rank of lieutenant reserve.
For a long time, he worked in various roles for construction companies in Siberia. In the late 1980s, he held secretary and inspector positions in the Communist Party Committees of Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk.
After that, Shoigu moved to Moscow and worked as deputy chairman of the State Committee for Construction and Architecture, then in 1991 became the head of the Russian Emergency Committee.
Shoigu actively supported former Russian President Boris Yeltsin. In 1993, Yeltsin awarded him the rank of Major General, leapfrogging several ranks that Shoigu had never held. Between 1994 and 2012, he headed up the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
In 1995, 1996, and 1998, Shoigu was awarded new military ranks, then in 2003 received the rank of army general from President Vladimir Putin before finally becoming Russia’s defense minister in 2012.
Shoigu has a son – Danila Sergeevich Shebunov – and two adult daughters – 45-year-old Yulia and 31-year-old Ksenia.
While Ksenia’s father threatens the West with war, Ksenia and her husband have traveled and enjoyed vacations in various European countries.
On March 12, Ksenia closed her Instagram account. Before doing so, she wrote a post in support of her father, stating that she was not ashamed to be Russian and that she considered military action in Ukraine to be a necessity.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s son pursues music career during war…
The Insider (08.06.2023) – Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s son, Danila Sergeevich Shebunov, is a budding entrepreneur attempting to build a career in show business at age 19, according to a report by Alexei Navalny’s team of investigators at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF). A few days before Russia invaded Ukraine, Shebunov started a TikTok account with covers of famous songs.
The young man performs under the stage name Sheba (or Sheba Singer).
The singer has recorded and released several videos with “shamelessly inflated thousands of views” (Sheba’s subscriber count amounted to little under 700 users at the time of publication).
The ACF also pointed out that Shoigu’s son went on vacation to Turkey with his music producer four days before Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a nationwide mobilization into the country’s armed forces.
In 2019, an investigation by The Insider revealed how Danila Shebunova’s mother (stewardess Elena Shebunova) suddenly became a billionaire after starting an affair with Sergei Shoigu and winning contracts with Russia’s Emergency and Defense Ministries, which allowed her to buy a luxurious mansion in Rublevka [a prestigious residential area in the western suburbs of Moscow – The Insider] next door to the Rotenberg palace.
In an expletive-laden May interview with pro-Kremlin political technologist Konstantin Dolgov, Wagner Group co-founder Yevgeny Prigozhin openly criticized the Russian Defense Minister and his family, calling his son-in-law a “d*ckwad.”
“F*ck, aren’t you ashamed of yourselves? Why don’t you grab your teenagers by the balls, or, I don’t know, by the pigtails, and put them in their place so they can calm down? Look what’s going on. What’s going on with Shoigu [the Russian Defense Minister]? Shoigu’s son-in-law is shaking his buttocks on camera, and his daughter is opening Kronstadt forts. Did you earn money for these forts?! Is it your money you spend on these forts? Spend it on f*cking ammunition. And when the Defense Minister flaunts his daughter and flaunts some d*ckwad who’s also a blogger and who says he doesn’t even like the special operation… It was not us who came up with this special operation, but we followed orders and said, “If we’re going to fight our neighbors, we should go all the way.”
REUTERS/Phil Noble
How Russia does business in the Putin era
Comrade Capitalism
A REUTERS INVESTIGATION
Putin’s daughter, a young billionaire and the president’s friends
By Stephen Grey, Andrey Kuzmin and Elizabeth Piper
Filed Nov. 10, 2015, 11:47 a.m. GMT
ON A ROLL: Katerina, the younger daughter of Vladimir Putin, has competed in acrobatic rock'n'roll dance competitions, including this 2014 event. She is also an academic and administrator, and has described herself as the "spouse" of Kirill Shamalov, who owns a stake worth about $2 billion in a gas and petrochemical company. REUTERS/Jakub DabrowskiThe Russian leader’s younger daughter Katerina is emerging as a woman of influence in the next generation of Moscow’s elite
Русский язык (Russian translation)
LONDON/MOSCOW – Since Vladimir Putin began cementing his grip on Russia in the 1990s, many of his friends have grown famously rich.
Not so the president himself, say his supporters, who insist Putin is above the money grab that has marked his reign. His public financial disclosures depict a man of modest means. In April, Putin declared an income for 2014 of 7.65 million roubles ($119,000). He listed the ownership of two modest apartments and a share in a car parking garage.
His daughter Katerina is doing considerably better, supported by some of the Russian president’s wealthy friends, a Reuters examination shows.
After unconfirmed media speculation about Katerina’s identity, a senior Russian figure told Reuters that she uses the surname Tikhonova. Andrey Akimov, deputy chairman of Russian lender Gazprombank, said he had met Katerina when she was little and more recently, and that Tikhonova was Putin’s daughter.
Reuters has also learned that earlier this year Katerina, 29, described herself as the “spouse” of Kirill Shamalov, son of Nikolai Shamalov, a longtime friend of the president. Shamalov senior is a shareholder in Bank Rossiya, which U.S. officials have described as the personal bank of the Russian elite.
As husband and wife, Kirill and Katerina would have corporate holdings worth about $2 billion, according to estimates provided to Reuters by financial analysts. That wealth stems mainly from a large publicly disclosed stake in a major gas and petrochemical company that Kirill acquired from Gennady Timchenko, another longtime friend of Putin.
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Also among the young couple’s holdings is a seaside villa in Biarritz, France, estimated to be worth about $3.7 million. That asset, too, was acquired by Kirill from Timchenko, a commodities trader who has known the president since at least the 1990s.
Katerina is also thriving in academia and running publicly funded projects at Moscow State University. A Reuters examination of public documents shows that the president’s younger daughter has signed contracts worth several million dollars from state-owned organisations for work at the university to be carried out by organisations she directs. There is no indication she has made any personal financial gain from this work.
She holds a senior position at the university, and helps direct a $1.7 billion plan to expand its campus. Katerina’s official advisers at Moscow State University include five members of Putin’s inner circle – including two former KGB officers who knew her when she was a toddler. They served with her father in the 1980s when he was deployed to Dresden, East Germany.
Putin’s elder daughter, Maria, is linked to Moscow State University as well. She is a graduate of the school’s Fundamental Medicine Department and is forging a career in endocrinology, according to publicly available documents.
Katerina, Maria and Kirill Shamalov all declined to comment for this article. Asked about the Biarritz home, a spokesman for Timchenko said he would not comment on personal matters.
The stock acquisitions, state business deals, French property and oligarch connections offer a rare glimpse into the lives of Putin’s children. The president has been very protective of his private life and his daughters, who seldom appear in the media. The transactions also provide insight into the family finances of Russia’s most powerful man and the elite that has formed around him.
Katerina and Kirill, 33, are among a new generation of Russians enjoying a rapid rise in the wake of their well-connected parents. The phenomenon bears similarities to the “princelings” of China – the children and grandchildren of Communist Party leaders who have gone on to gain positions of power and amass great wealth.
PARTED: Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila, his former wife and mother of his two daughters, pictured in 2011. The couple divorced in 2014. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin“It’s more than just a dynastic succession. Children don’t just inherit their parents’ posts, but also the right to choose any other post they fancy.”Alexei Navalny, opposition leader
Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist and former member of Putin’s United Russia political party, told Reuters that a “new aristocracy” was emerging in politics and state companies, with a second generation inheriting the status of the current circle around Putin. “Many in society think they haven't worked for it, and they question who these people really are,” she said.
Among other children of the Putin circle with growing influence are:
Boris Kovalchuk, son of Yuri Kovalchuk, the largest shareholder of Bank Rossiya and a close Putin associate;
Gleb Frank, son of former transport minister Sergei Frank and son-in-law of commodity billionaire Timchenko;
Igor Rotenberg, son of the billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, Putin’s former judo partner;
Sergei S. Ivanov, son of Kremlin Chief of Staff Sergei B. Ivanov.
(See related story below)
In an interview with Reuters, Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, described what he called a “neo-feudal system” that threatens to dominate state offices and big business.
“Today in Russia, it is absolutely normal that the boards of directors at state banks are headed by children of security service officials, who aren’t even 30 years old when they are appointed,” he said. “It is more than just a dynastic succession. Children don’t just inherit their parents’ posts, but also the right to choose any other post they fancy. The danger is that very soon all key resources will end up in the hands of five to seven families.”
Reuters asked the Kremlin whether Katerina Tikhonova was the daughter of Putin and whether she is married to Kirill Shamalov, and other questions. Dmitry Peskov, press secretary of the Russian Federation, replied: “We have no information whatsoever about the personal life, family connection, marital status, academic activities, involvement in particular projects and family tree of Ms Tikhonova, or about other individuals mentioned in your letter.
“In recent years there has been an enormous quantity of gossip on the subject of the family ties of V. Putin, and, in particular, his daughters. The proportion of accurate information in all these publications is laughably small.”
“TALENTED RESEARCHER”
Katerina has largely escaped public attention since her father became president in 2000. In 2011, Putin told Russian television that Katerina had read Oriental studies, specialising in Japanese and history, at St. Petersburg University.
Little else was known about her adult life until a Russian blogger, Oleg Kashin, reported in January that the president’s younger daughter was active at Moscow State University and had taken the surname Tikhonova, derived from the name of her grandmother, Yekaterina Tikhonovna Shkrebneva.
As well as Gazprombank’s Akimov, two senior academic sources - one at Moscow State University and one scientist with close contacts there - also confirmed to Reuters that Tikhonova is Putin’s daughter.
She has made rapid progress since her Oriental studies as an undergraduate.
According to the website of Moscow State University, she is attached to the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty. Under the name Tikhonova, she is listed as an author, along with other academics, of a chapter in a maths text book and at least six scientific papers since 2011. The papers include studies on medicines and space travel; one is listed as a study of how the human body reacts to zero gravity.
Most of the papers were co-authored with the university rector, Viktor Sadovnichy. He did not respond directly to requests for comment, but the university issued a statement.
It said Tikhonova had proved to be a “talented researcher” who had “reported results of her research at scientific seminars and conferences many times.” The statement added: “We do not have information about the private life of employees.”
Tikhonova is also the director of two initiatives connected to the university, the National Intellectual Development Foundation (NIDF) and the National Intellectual Reserve Centre (NIRC). She became director of the non-profit NIDF in May 2013 and later became director of the NIRC as well.
The NIRC and NIDF created and run a project at the university called Innopraktika, which is also headed by Tikhonova. It sponsors and supports young scientists.
Innopraktika has a raft of advisers and partners who are close to Putin, including Sergei Chemezov and Nikolai Tokarev. The two men were KGB associates of Putin during his days as a spy in Dresden, Germany, living in the same apartment block as the future Russian leader and his young family.
BIG IDEAS: The main building of Moscow State University where Katerina Tikhonova is helping direct a $1.7 billion expansion plan. REUTERS/Sergei KarpukhinChemezov is now the head of state-owned technology giant Rostec, and Tokarev is head of state-owned Transneft, a gas pipeline company. Tokarev did not respond to a request for comment. Chemezov’s company Rostec said in a statement that Rostec assists in the state’s development of industry, and that Chemezov’s involvement with Innopraktika was therefore “natural and logical.”
Also among the trustees of Innopraktika, according to its website, are Igor Sechin, head of the state oil company Rosneft, and Andrey Akimov, deputy chairman of Gazprombank. Rosneft and Sechin declined to comment.
Asked about Tikhonova and Innopraktika, Akimov told Reuters: “I knew it was Putin’s daughter. But of course we took the decision to support MSU’s projects irrespective of any family connections.” Innopraktika’s programme coincided with the bank’s own priorities, he said, including Gazprombank’s “global idea of supporting scientific development.” (See update below).
He said he did not believe that Tikhonova had received any special treatment, and that he supported the expansion plan of Moscow State University, regardless of Tikhonova’s involvement.
The university’s rector, Sadovnichy, said in a May 2014 presentation published on the university website that NIDF, along with other entities, would be tasked with conducting an expert review of the expansion of the university. Tikhonova’s role is to confer with and represent the views of the wider business community, she told Interfax in an interview this month.
The $1.7 billion expansion plan involves both public and private funding, and aims to double the size of the university campus by 2018 with new laboratories, academic buildings, schools, student accommodation, and a museum.
The NIDF did not respond to a request for comment. In an email, Innopraktika referred questions about its activities to Moscow State University and said it could not comment on Tikhonova’s private life.
The university said in a statement that many people were involved in its expansion plan, including university employees and outside experts.
According to Russian state public records, since 2013 the NIDF has won contracts worth 182 million roubles ($2.8 million) from Rosneft, Rosatom and Transneft, all state-owned companies. Of 10 contracts reviewed by Reuters, eight were awarded without competitive tender. The contracts were mostly to carry out research at the university.
Transneft declined to comment. A spokesman for Rosatom said: “Rosatom cooperates with Innopraktika as well as other institutions … As part of its strategy Rosatom aims at developing new projects.” He said contracts were awarded openly and transparently.
A spokesman for the oil company Rosneft said it was cooperating with Moscow State University on 17 projects that were worth a total of 530 million roubles.
FAST RISE: Kirill Shamalov is a director and part-owner of Sibur, one of Russia’s largest gas-processing and petrochemicals companies. REUTERS/Kommersant Photo/Dmitry DukhaninIn March 2015, Tikhonova was appointed as a deputy vice-rector of the university. It is not known whether the post pays a salary. Tikhonova’s role in the expansion project, though not her family tie to Putin, was laid out in a report in January by Russian news agency RBC. Her title at the university was first reported by opposition leader Navalny. Her appointment is noted in an official order by Sadovnichy posted on the university website. She does not appear on the ordinary list of staff, but she is listed as a member of the university’s scientific council.
Asked about Tikhonova’s title, pay and role, the university said in statement: “The National Intellectual Reserve Centre supports specifically young people in innovative activity of MSU, and that is why its activity is coordinated by the Rector’s office … Consequently the Centre’s director Katerina Tikhonova is the deputy vice-rector within this department.”
OCEAN VIEWS
Tikhonova is active beyond the university. Under that name, she has competed for years as an acrobatic rock’n’roll dancer. In 2013, she and her dancing partner came fifth in a world championship event in Switzerland.
Today, she is chairman of two organising committees of the All-Russian Acrobatic Rock’n’Roll Federation, according to its website. The Federation’s sponsors include Sibur, Novatek and Gazprombank - companies that are co-owned or co-controlled by friends and associates of the president. These people include Timchenko; Kirill Shamalov; and Kirill’s elder brother, Yury Shamalov. The same companies are also mentioned on Innopraktika’s website as among its corporate partners.
A spokesman for Sibur said: “As for sponsoring the (Acrobatic Rock’n’Roll) Federation – the motives are the same as in partnerships with other types of sport. At different times Sibur has supported the Russian basketball federation, Formula One team, many Russian hockey and football teams and many others.”
The spokesman said Sibur provided advice but not money to Innopraktika, and had long collaborated with Moscow State University. Novatek did not respond to requests for comment.
News of a possible relationship between Tikhonova and Shamalov surfaced early this year. The RBC agency and Kashin’s blog both reported in January that the two visited Switzerland together.
Reuters has independently confirmed that Tikhonova identified herself as Shamalov’s “spouse” during her visit to Switzerland.
The young Shamalov has a valuable property in France. Perched atop a sea cliff in the resort of Biarritz is a four-storey house with a swimming pool, which Shamalov acquired three years ago.
The elegant house on Avenue du General Mac Croskey in Biarritz covers about 300 square metres inside and has 2,000 square metres of garden. Built in the 1950s, it is now worth about 3.5 million euros ($3.7 million), according to Pierre Fourreau, an architect who renovated the property seven years ago.
FRENCH RETREAT: The house in Biarritz that Kirill Shamalov acquired from Gennady Timchenko, the commodities billionaire and old Putin friend. REUTERS/Regis DuvignauPublic records show the property was previously owned by Putin’s old friend Timchenko. In September 2007, Timchenko and his wife, Elena Ermakova, registered a French property company called SCI Atlantic to acquire the house. On Nov. 15, 2012, the couple’s shares in SCI Atlantic, which still owns the Biarritz house, were transferred for an undisclosed price to Kirill Shamalov.
People living near the Biarritz house say they have not seen the young couple there.
The Biarritz house is a small part of Shamalov’s growing assets. In 2008, the young businessman became a member of the management board of Sibur Holding, a large, privately held gas-processing and petrochemicals company. He acquired a 4.3 percent stake.
In 2014, he acquired an additional 17 percent holding in Sibur from Timchenko and became a member of Sibur’s board of directors. Timchenko has known the Russian leader at least since Putin’s days as deputy mayor in St. Petersburg in the 1990s, and the two prospered together. While Putin went on to become president, Timchenko co-created Gunvor, a company that traded Russian oil, and became a multi-billionaire.
Sibur recorded revenues of 361 billion roubles ($5.6 billion) and net profit of 25 billion roubles in 2014. Last year it began a project with the U.S. National Basketball Association (NBA) to develop basketball in Russia. The project is continuing, said spokesmen for the NBA and Sibur.
Shamalov’s 21 percent stake in Sibur is worth about $2 billion, possibly more, according to estimates by three financial analysts.
The price Shamalov paid for his stake in Sibur has not been disclosed, and it isn’t clear where he obtained the capital to purchase the shares. In an interview with Kommersant in August, Shamalov said he had acquired the stake at a market price and had borrowed money to buy it, but did not specify how much. When Reuters asked about the stake, a spokeswoman for Shamalov declined to comment.
A spokesman for Sibur said: “According to corporate rules, we do not comment on the personal lives of our managers and members of the board of directors.”
A spokesman for Timchenko declined to comment on the Biarritz house. He said Timchenko’s sales of shares to Shamalov were “monetary transactions, made at market prices.”
In comparison to this rising young Russian generation, Vladimir Putin remains a man of the middle class, according to his asset declaration. As well as his salary, he declared the ownership of one apartment in Moscow and another in St. Petersburg. He listed no property abroad.
The president’s spokesman has repeatedly denied that a luxurious estate built on the Black Sea and popularly known as “Putin’s palace” was intended for the Russian president. As Reuters reported last year, the mansion was partly funded by Nikolai Shamalov - father of Kirill, the man who the president’s daughter has described as her spouse.
Update: After publication of this story, Gazprombank issued a statement saying that Andrey Akimov had not made the remarks about Katerina Tikhonova reported by Reuters. “Akimov made no such statements,” Gazprombank said.
In response, Reuters said it stood by the accuracy of the quotes and the story.
After Akimov’s denial, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cited the Gazprombank statement and said he could “refute” the Reuters special report. But Peskov did not deny that Tikhonova is Putin’s daughter. He said: “As for who Putin’s daughter is, I cannot tell you anything because I do not have and I am not supposed to have this information. It’s not part of my administrative duties.”
Additional reporting by Katerina Kravtsova and Himanshu Ojha in London, and Claude Canellas in Biarritz
Putin’s other daughter: a specialist in biomedical scienceBy Stephen Grey and Elizabeth Piper
EARLY DAYS: Putin’s daughters as young children in a photograph from his official website.Русский язык (Russian translation)
Vladimir Putin’s elder daughter, Maria, has kept out of the spotlight even more than her sister. Reuters was unable to find any recent, confirmed photographs of Maria.
Born on Apr. 28, 1985, Maria studied biology at St. Petersburg University and medicine at Moscow State University.
According to Russian and Western media reports, she married a Dutch businessman called Jorrit Joost Faassen. Some reports claimed she lived in the Netherlands for a while, but this could not be confirmed.
Earlier this year, Putin said both his daughters were living in Moscow, but gave no further details.
Maria now uses the surname Faassen, and under that name she is pursuing a biomedical career specialising in the endocrine system, which controls the body’s hormones, according to academic listings and publications.
On the website of Istina, a directory of scholars and their work at Moscow State University, she is listed as co-author of five studies published in the past two years, with titles including “The status of blood antioxidant system in patients with active acromegaly.”
She is also the co-author of a book about “Idiopathic stunting” in children, published earlier this year by Lambert Academic Publishing.
Maria is a PhD candidate at the Endocrinology Research Centre in Moscow, which runs a charity project, Alfa-Endo, that helps children affected by endocrine ailments. The project’s website includes a presentation by Maria.
Maria told Reuters in an email that requests for information about the centre should be directed to its leadership. She did not respond to questions about when she was married or whether her father’s position had affected her career.
Alfa-Endo is funded by Alfa Bank, a large Russian bank with subsidiaries in the United States, Britain and Cyprus. The largest shareholder is Mikhail Fridman, a billionaire with interests in banking, energy and telecoms. An official at the bank said: “Alfa Bank, and broadly speaking Alfa Group, act as financial sponsors for the project and that’s it … We are not aware who else is participating in the project otherwise.”
Maria’s husband used to work for Gazprombank, a large lender with strong links to the elite around Putin. And until at least August this year, Jorrit Joost Faassen was listed on the website of MEF Audit, a Russian consulting group, as its deputy chairman. He no longer appears on the website and did not respond to requests for comment.
Rising stars among Russia’s second-generation eliteBy Stephen Grey and Elizabeth Piper
Boris Kovalchuk. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin
Roman Rotenberg. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
Andrey Murov. REUTERS/Kommersant Photo/Yevgeny Pavlenko
Dmitry N Patrushev. REUTERS/Kommersant Photo/Dmitry DukhaninРусский язык (Russian translation)
Boris Kovalchuk. Born in 1977, he is the son of Yuri Kovalchuk, the founder and largest shareholder of Bank Rossiya, and founder with Putin of the Ozero dacha cooperative, an exclusive lakeside settlement of weekend homes near St. Petersburg. His son Boris is CEO and chairman of the management board of state electricity holding firm InterRAO. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Yury Shamalov. Brother of Kirill and elder son of Nikolai Shamalov, an old friend of Putin. Yury Shamalov is deputy chairman of Gazprombank, one of Russia’s largest lenders and the owner of a strongly pro-Kremlin media group. He is also president of Gazfond, the largest pension fund in Russia. Gazfond is the largest shareholder in Gazprombank. Requests for comment from Shamalov sent to Gazfond went unanswered.
Sergei Ivanov. Son of former KGB general and current Kremlin chief of staff, Sergei B. Ivanov. The younger Ivanov, 35, is a director of Gazprombank and has been chairman of the management board of Sogaz, one of Russia’s largest insurance companies, since 2011. Last year, the younger Ivanov told Reuters his father’s position had “only hindered” his work at Gazprombank. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Gleb Frank. The son of Putin’s former transport minister, Sergei Frank. In 2010, the younger Frank married Ksenia, the daughter of oil billionaire Gennady Timchenko, who is an old friend of Putin. A year later, Frank, 32, joined the board of directors of Stroitransgaz, a large construction company co-owned by Timchenko. Frank also increased his stakes in Russkaya Akvakultura, a fish farming company, by buying shares from Timchenko. In June, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported that his 37.13 percent stake in the company was worth 1.68 billion roubles ($26 million). A source close to Frank said the young businessman had few interests connected to his father-in-law and that he had acquired the stake in Russkaya Akvakultura for a market price. The source did not say how Frank had acquired the capital to make the purchases.
Igor Rotenberg. Aged 42, he has acquired significant assets from his 63-year-old father, Arkady Rotenberg, a former judo partner of Putin. The older Rotenberg became a billionaire from business interests developed while Putin consolidated political power. The assets Arkady has sold to his son Igor include 79 percent of drilling company Gazprom Drilling (Bureniye); 28 percent of road construction company Mostotrest; and 33 percent in TPS Real Estate Holding. Igor Rotenberg, in a written statement, told Reuters: “Of course my father gave me a good start in business. Today I am an independent businessman and I am developing my assets with my team in a competitive, market environment.”
Roman Rotenberg. Igor’s younger brother. Born in 1981, he plays ice hockey, Putin’s favourite sport. The young Rotenberg has developed ice hockey in Finland, and is vice president of the St. Petersburg SKA hockey club, whose president is Timchenko. He has also worked as a vice president of Gazprombank since 2010. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Ivan Sechin. Son of Igor Sechin, head of the state-owned oil company Rosneft. In January, Rosneft announced that Putin had given an award to Ivan Sechin, for his “substantial contribution” to the country’s fuel and energy sector and “longstanding conscientious” work. Sechin is said by Russian media to be about 25 years old. He had been working for Rosneft as a deputy director of a department for less than a year when he got the award. He did not respond to requests for comment.
Andrey Murov. Son of ex-KGB general Evgeny Murov, who has run the Federal Protective Service since 2001. The service safeguards Putin, other VIPs and presidential buildings. Murov’s son Andrey, born in March 1970, is chairman of the management board of the state-owned Federal Grid Company, which is the main supplier of electricity in Russia and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. He did not to respond to a request for comment.
Dmitry Patrushev. Son of the head of the Russian Federation Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev. Dmitry, 38, has headed the Russian Agricultural Bank, one of the largest state-owned banks in Russia, since 2010. He did not respond to a request for comment.
Inside Putin’s ‘secret’ daughter’s gaudy, $10K-per-month home in Russia
The over-the-top luxury penthouse believed to be owned by the mother of Vladimir Putin’s “secret” love child is available to rent for more than $10,000 per month.
Located in the elite St. Petersburg neighborhood Kamenny Island, the property is the childhood home of Putin’s rumored 19-year-old daughter, Luiza Rozova, according to BBC Russia. Rozova’s mother — 40-something former maid-turned-millionaire Svetlana Krivonogikh — has often been pegged as the Russian president’s “former lover.”
Listed by Engel & Völkers, the residence spans more than 4,800 square feet, and is one of 21 luxe apartments in the complex, known as Berezovaya Alley.
Comprising three floors, the first level features a living room and an expansive terrace overlooking the Neva river.
On the second floor is a bedroom and a child’s playroom. And on the third floor is an opulent wet bar, home theater and a sun lounge covered with flashy gold foil, the listing notes, according to the East2West news service.
It is believed that Krivonogikh raised her daughter in this home, beginning a year after she was born, according to the BBC. Rozova remains the only legal-adult child of Putin who has yet to be sanctioned.
Putin’s two high-profile older daughters, Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, were sanctioned on Wednesday in the latest round of US and European economic penalties implemented in opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the listing for Rozova’s former home describes the property as “one of the most private complexes in St. Petersburg” and “surrounded by a moat and is distinguished by solid classical architecture.”
Rozova and her mother are reportedly now living in another opulent residence in the city worth $2.2 million, which has been described as “palace luxury.”
They also reportedly own a $4 million estate in Monaco. Krivonogikh, who also has a stake in a major Russian bank, is rumored to own nearly $100 million in financial and property assets.
Rozova was once active on social media with about 84,000 followers — but she mysteriously stopped publicly posting more than six months ago. Her Instagram account was later deactivated following a flood of backlash.
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