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Which Kremligarchs Should Be Sanctioned by the Biden Administration? 1 CONTENTS Which Kremligarchs Should Be Sanctioned by the Biden Administration? 1 CONTENTS Introduction 3 Criteria for selection 4 Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman 5 Iskander Makhmudov and Andrey Bokarev 11 Dmitry Rybolovlev 14 Mikhail Gutseriev 19 Ruben Vardanyan 20 Alexander Vinokurov 24 Annex: need for a new term "kremligarch" 28 2 WHICH KREMLIGARCHS SHOULD BE SANCTIONED BY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION? Introduction This report is an investigative and reference completely on the Kremlin’s hook. Kremligarchs study, based on open and verifiable have their overwhelming allegiance to Putin information, which offers the latest and his closest circle. recommendations for individual sanctions on the key “oligarchs” close to Vladimir Putin and Kremligarchs is a more relevant new his regime. The report argues these individuals, term than “oligarchs”, it shows a total who I prefer to call “kremligarchs”, should be predominance of Putin and Kremlin over added to the US Treasury sanctions’ lists due all aspects of business in Russia. to their close involvement in the Kremlin’s infrastructure designed to harm the US and its The new administration is in the White House allies. and exercising democratic control over both chambers of Congress. Now is an appropriate The term “oligarchs” is put above in inverted time to update and evaluate options for commas because it is outdated, something further sanctions under existing and proposed that I have been suggesting for a long time legislation. I strongly believe that a few dozen now1. An annex to this report provides a kremligarchs constitute the backbone of Putin’s detailed explanation why kremligarch is a network aimed against the West, but also much more relevant new term. It will be represent his regime’s big vulnerability. Key immediately understood by those who monitor Russian opposition figures are now urging the developments in Putin’s Russia. In short, West to sanction major Russian businessmen “oligarch” conveys a sense of independent (and they are overwhelmingly men).2 With the wealth, ownership of a genuine private recent arrest of Alexey Navalny, a key opposition business in an economy where at least basic figure who supports such sanctions, there market forces and private ownership exist are even more reasons to review and expand thanks to judicial power that is at least partly US sanctions against the Kremlin’s repressive independent. regime.3 Considerable parts of this report are based on Navalny's team investigations4. None of these conditions are any longer present under Putin. Kremligarch serves as a Notably, this report is complimentary to other better reflection of today’s Russian business ongoing efforts by Russian opposition and environment where all wealth handlers are civil society organizations to add different sets tied to the Kremlin administration and state of officials and businessmen to US sanctions. favors are allocated between these handlers. What matters to me is that not all kremligarchs Meanwhile the economy has become almost can be sanctioned without economic entirely based on corrupt monopolies, there is repercussions in the West. I have pragmatically virtually no economic independence nor basic chosen key individuals important to Putin’s defense of private property. Kremligarch is a subversive foreign policy but who are also low person then who may appear to be a wealthy “tycoon” perhaps, in the West, but in reality, is 2 https://www.rferl.org/a/navalny-calls-on-eu-to-target- russian-oligarchs-with-sanctions/30972213.html 1 https://martenscentre.eu/sites/default/files/publication- 3 https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/17/biden-national- files/russia-elections-russian-oligarchs.pdf; security-advisor-calls-for-russia-to-release-navalny.html https://www.c-span.org/video/?431597-1/helsinki-commission- 4 Including YouTube videos by Alexey Navalny, his eco- holds-discussion-russian-corruption nomic adviser Vladimir Milov and Perm region team Which Kremligarchs Should Be Sanctioned by the Biden Administration? 3 hanging fruit for the new US administration. In other words, they can be viably sanctioned Criteria for selection under existing legislation, such as the Countering America’s Adversaries Through The two basic criteria that I have used Sanctions Act (CAATSA), without risking any are derived from the Countering America’s serious impact on the US (as was not the case, Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) for example, with Oleg Deripaska and RUSAL, legislation. These constitute: which sparked a pushback from some US and EU steel partners of the Russian company5). a) proximity to Putin’s inner circle/involvement in his regime’s policy Many of the names mentioned are familiar figures in the sanctions debate. Some of the b) participation in the Kremlin’s subversive facts about the kremligarchs I list in my report activity against Western democratic are also not new, but perhaps have been institutions and interests neglected by US policy-makers. Nevertheless, Both of these criteria can still be broken into there have been significant developments sub-criteria, to give a precise and nuanced over the past eighteen months regarding definition of what proximity to Putin and most of these kremligarchs warranting wider 6 subversive activities in the West really mean. discussion about their activities. Below I In 2018 I discussed how these sub-criteria provide substantiated reasons for inclusion of could be defined and why CAATSA should the following eight kremligarchs for sanctions’ be considered as a watershed in sanctions review: criteria, especially as far as what we then • Petr Aven & Mikhail Fridman called “oligarchs”, are concerned.8 In short, those criteria provide more flexible ways for 7 • Iskander Makhmudov & Andrey Bokarev the US government to include a wider array • Dmitry Rybolovlev of Kremlin-connected “oligarchs” based on economic and political considerations and not • Mikhail Gutseriev just gross human rights violations, criminal • Ruben Vardanyan activity and involvement in Russia’s invasions of Ukraine and Georgia. Given the gravity of • Alexander Vinokurov Russian corruption and subversive activity with regards to US national security, the importance of such criteria should not be underestimated. Apart from CAATSA, recommendations from this report may be useful to US policy- makers considering sanctions against Kremlin networks under existing and pending legislation such as the Global Magnitsky Act and the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act (DASKA). Key findings of the report in terms of applicability of different criteria are summarized in the chart below. 5 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-17/ deripaska-s-rusal-role-spurred-europe-sanctions-warning-to-u-s 6 Some of the references in the footnotes are available only in Russian but can be read using Google translate. 7 I place the first four oligarchs in two pairs as they are 8 https://www.underminers.info/publications/2018/6/20/ closely aligned in their business and interaction with the Krem- report-by-i-zaslavskiy-and-s-stedman-on-interpreting-criteria- lin. for-sanctions-on-kremlin-oligarchs pp.4-6 4 Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman Aven/ Aven/ Reasons to be included under sanctions: Bokarev Fridman Gutseriev Vinokurov Vardanyan Rybolovlev Makhmudov/ Makhmudov/ • Proximity to Putin and Russian intelligence Proximity to • Funding of Russian defense industry and Putin/Kremlin strategic exports/trade through direct contacts and • • • • • • • Alleged corruption and corporate raiding inner circle • Undermining of Western institutions and Funding of security Russian defense • Attacks on American and Russian media industry and stra- tegic exports/trade • • In the West, Aven and Fridman are usually presented as founders of the Luxembourg and US-based company, Letter One, and as Alleged philanthropists. In Russia they are better known corruption • • • • • as the two main principals of Alfa Group, one Proximity to other of the largest privately owned investment consortiums in Russia. Multiple new interviews sanctioned indi- • • • • with well-connected sources in Putin’s People, viduals/entities the recent book by Reuters correspondent Undermining Catherine Belton, have provided additional of Western legal evidence that, from their student years, and 9 system and other throughout the Putin administration , Aven and • • • Fridman have been in close cooperation with institution the KGB and its successor the FSB.10 Facilitating US sanctions evasion • • • Support of Lukashenka • • Involved in disin- formation opera- tions in the West • • - requires more investigation by the US Government Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman and Lord Browne. Source: L1 Group, 2015. CC 2.0 According to Belton’s account, Aven was sent to a KGB-friendly Austrian economic institute while Fridman engaged in black market operations while a member of Komsomol. Fridman’s company Alfa Eco, the precursor to today’s Alfa Group, was also assisted by the KGB in opening an export trading branch 9 Belton, C 2020, Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took On the West, First American edition, Far- rar, Straus and Giroux, New York, p.70 and pp. 189-190 10 https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374238711 Which Kremligarchs Should Be Sanctioned by the Biden Administration? 5 in Switzerland, one of the first of its kind11. out a corporate raid against Russia’s third Belton also provides new material about how largest oil company TNK-BP. This was done Aven shielded Vladimir Putin from criminal at the enormous expense of US
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