Owner
President
Yuri
Shamalov
Nikolai
Shamalov
Katerina
Tikhonova
(Putina)
Father/Son
(Boris)
Kirill
Shamalov
Father/Son
(Arkadiy)
Maria
Putina
Video InternationalNot sanctioned
VI (Video International) is a major Russian TV advertising operator partly owned by cellist and Putin friend Sergei Roldugin.
Jorrit
Joost
Faassen
SOGAZ NedvizhimostNot sanctioned
SOGAZ Nedvizhimost is a subsidiary of SOGAZ, the insurance company of the state energy giant Gazprom, which deals in real estate. It is owned by Accept, a company that belongs to Mikhail Shelomov, a son of Putin’s cousin. At around the time he acquired it, its assets were worth over $34 million dollars.
$1,000,000,000
Sergei
Roldugin
Bank RossiyaSanctioned
Bank Rossiya is widely known as the “bank of Putin’s friends” and was heavily targeted by US sanctions. The bank’s majority owner is Yuri Kovalchuk, an old Putin associate. It has featured prominently in previous OCCRP reporting.A considerable stake of the bank is owned by Mikhail Shelomov, the son of a Putin cousin.
$500,000,000 (in 2011)
$2,000,000,000
Pyotr
Kolbin
SOGAZNot sanctioned
SOGAZ is the insurance company of state energy giant Gazprom.Ksenia Frank, the daughter of Gennady Timchenko, received his shares of SOGAZ after he was sanctioned by the United States. According to a 2013 valuation by Gazprombank, the 12.5 percent stake she received was worth over 6 billion rubles (about $190 million) at the time.The deputy chairman of the company’s management board is Mikhail Putin, the son of the president’s cousin.Mikhail Shelomov, the son of another Putin cousin, acquired over 12 percent of the company in 2004 for about $15 million, according to prices derived from an earlier sale. By 2013, that stake grew in value to nearly $200 million, according to a Gazprombank valuation.
1,300,000,000
$3,000,000,000
Gennady
Timchenko
Gazprom BurenieNot sanctioned
Gazprom Burenie is one of Russia’s largest drilling companies and receives contracts from Gazprom, the state energy giant. It is owned by Igor Rotenberg, the son of Arkadiy Rotenberg.
16,000,000,000
$4,000,000,000
Ksenia Frank
(Timchenko)
SMP BankSanctioned
SMP Bank is a Russian bank owned by Boris and Arkady Rotenberg. It was placed under US sanctions in 2014.
160,000,000
SGM GroupSanctioned
SGM Group, also called Stroygazmontazh, is a leading construction company focusing on oil and gas infrastructure. It is owned by Arkady Rotenberg and is one of Gazprom’s biggest contractors.
550,000,000
573,000,000
1,000,000,000
3,600,000,000
Friend
Childhood friends
Relative
Daughter
Former
Owner
Yuri KovalchukSanctioned
Yuri Kovalchuk is an old Putin associate and the majority owner of Bank Rossiya, known as the “bank of Putin’s friends.” Along with the bank itself, Kovalchuk is under US sanctions personally.Among the bank's minor co-owners are Nikolai Shamalov, Gennady Timchenko, and Sergei Roldugin. The first two are also on this list.
Husband
Mikhail
Shelomov
Sergei RolduginNot sanctioned
Sergei Roldugin is a friend of the Putin family who met the president through his older brother Evgeni. Sergei is the godfather of the Putin’s oldest daughter, Maria.Though not a businessman -- he is a cellist by profession -- Roldugin featured prominently in the Panama Papers leaks. The documents showed his connections with offshore companies that were used to transfer nearly $2 billion. The money came from a Cyprus subsidiary of the state-owned VTB Bank and from several of the president’s other friends, such as the Rotenberg brothers.Roldugin has a stake in VI (Video International), a Russian TV advertising operator.When asked by Novaya Gazeta reporters about his offshore companies, Roldugin started to talk about his business before perestroika time while offshore companies linked to his name were registered many years later.
Bank
Rossiya
Mikhail
Putin
SOGAZ
Ilham RagimovNot sanctioned
Ilham Ragimov is a friend of Vladimir Putin and is worth $500 million, according to the 2014 version of the Russian Forbes’ list of wealthiest Russians. He is a minor co-owner in the real estate projects of “Kievskaya Ploshchad” Group, the number one real estate development company in Russia.
SOGAZ
Nedvizhimost
Former
employee
Yuri
Kovalchuk
Igor PutinNot sanctioned
Igor Putin is the president’s cousin.He was a board member of several banks that were closed because of dubious operations: In November 2013, the Russian Central Bank withdrew the license of Master Bank, pointing to violations of banking regulations.Russian Land Bank, where Igor Putin was a board member, appeared in OCCRP and Novaya Gazeta’s reporting on the Russian Laundromat. The bank was used in the illegal scheme to funnel more than $20 billion out of Russia over several years.
VI (Video
International)
Son
Arkadiy
& Boris
Rotenberg
Roman PutinNot sanctioned
Roman Putin is the son of Igor Putin, the president’s cousin. He is a former FSB officer and the founder of a company called Putin Consulting. In 2014 he planned to start an anti-corruption project called Putin’s Control, but the idea didn't work out.As he told the Vedomosti business daily in an interview, officials paid him little attention, and he was even threatened in retaliation for his efforts.
Yamal
LNG
Igor
Rotenberg
Yuri ShamalovNot sanctioned
Yuri Shamalov is the son of Nikolai Shamalov, an old friend of Vladimir Putin.He is the president of GAZFOND, the non-government pension foundation of Gazprom, the state energy giant. He is also on the board of directors at Gazprombank, of which Gazprom is a major shareholder. Gazprombank provided a loan to Yuri Shamalov’s brother Kirill -- the husband of Putin’s daughter Katerina -- for the purchase of shares in Sibur, Russia’s largest integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company.
Kievskaya
Ploshchad
Roman
Rotenberg
Kievskaya PloshchadNot sanctioned
The Kievskaya Ploshchad (“Kiev Square”) group is Russia’s largest real estate developer, with rental incomes of over $1.2 billion. According to Forbes, its projects include several large Moscow shopping centers and hotels, including the Radisson Royal (formerly the famous “Ukraine” hotel). The company’s majority owners are businessmen God Nisanov and Zarakh Iliev.
Ksenia FrankNot sanctioned
Ksenia Frank is the daughter of Gennady Timchenko, Putin’s wealthiest acquaintance.As a 2016 Novaya Gazeta investigation revealed, Timchenko transferred his shares of SOGAZ -- the insurance company of Gazprom, the state energy giant -- to Ksenia after being sanctioned by the United States. According to a 2013 valuation of the company by Gazprombank, the 12.5 percent stake she received was worth over 6 billion rubles (about $190 million) at the time.Timchenko did his best to keep the transaction a secret. “We should not leave too much to our children,” he said in a 2014 interview with a TASS reporter. “It is necessary to raise them properly, to give them a good education -- and then they’re on their own,” he said.Ksenia Frank is married to Gleb Frank, whose father Sergei is the CEO of Sovcomflot, a state company that transports oil and oil products.
Katerina TikhonovaNot sanctioned
Katerina Tikhonova is Vladimir Putin’s younger daughter and the wife of Kirill Shamalov. She was appointed head of the National Intellectual Development Foundation, the National Intellectual Reserve Center, and the company Innopraktika, according to Reuters. The latter is participating in a Moscow State University project to develop its scientific and technology valley, worth at least $1.7 billion as of 2015, according to RBC business daily.(See this earlier OCCRP story for more about Tikhonova)
Viktor KhmarinNot sanctioned
Viktor Khmarin and Vladimir Putin were friends from their student days at St. Petersburg State University (then called Leningrad State University).When Putin became president, Khmarin and his partners started business to supply equipment and spare parts for Gazprom, the state energy giant. Between 2003 and 2009, companies linked to them earned billions of rubles from Gazprom contracts.The business later ended because of disputes between Khmarin and his partners.
Viktor
Khmarin
Maria PutinaNot sanctioned
Vladimir Putin’s elder daughter graduated from the fundamental medicine department of Moscow State University in 2011 and started her postgraduate study at the Endocrinology Research Center of Russia’s ministry of health and social development.
Ilham
Ragimov
GAZFONDNot sanctioned
GAZFOND is the non-government pension foundation of Gazprom, the state energy giant. Its president is Yuri Shamalov, the son of Nikolai Shamalov, an old friend of Vladimir Putin.
Jorrit Joost FaassenNot sanctioned
Jorrit Joost Fassen is a Dutch citizen and the husband of Putin’s daughter Maria.He has previously worked for Stroytransgaz, an engineering and construction holding owned by Gennady Timchenko that often wins contracts from Gazprom and other state energy companies.
Vladimir Putin
Igor
Putin
SIBURNot sanctioned
SIBUR is Russia’s largest gas processing and petrochemicals company. Its shareholders on the list include Gennady Timchenko and Kirill Shamalov, husband of Putin’s daughter Katerina, who purchased some of Timchenko’s shares in 2014 after the latter was sanctioned by the United States. It is also partly owned by businessman Leonid Mikhelson, named by Forbes as Russia’s richest man in 2017.
Mikhail ShelomovNot sanctioned
Mikhail Shelomov is the son of Putin’s cousin Lyubov Shelomova.Though working as a “chief specialist” for a state shipping company and earning a relatively modest salary, Shelomov acquired assets over a series of years that were worth nearly $600 million as of the latest known figures. These include shares in Bank Rossiya, known as the bank of Putin’s friends, SOGAZ, the insurance company of state energy giant Gazprom, and a company previously connected to the Rotenberg brothers.Shelomov’s company, Accept, is a 50 percent investor into Igora Drive, a racetrack under construction near St. Petersburg.When contacted by OCCRP reporters, Shelomov did not appear to be fully aware of the extent of the companies and projects under his control.For more about Mikhail Shelomov and his mysteriously acquired assets, see our main Shelomov story.
Vladimir PutinNot sanctioned
Russian president Vladimir Putin has denied rumors that he is one of the world’s wealthiest men. And it’s true that Putin’s name has never emerged in any publicly available documents that would attest to massive riches or offshore companies. According to asset declaration forms collected by Transparency International, he had a modest bank account and property -- but no titles to luxury yachts or opulent villas. His annual income in 2016 amounted to 8.9 million rubles (around $133,000).
But over the course of his presidency, the members of his inner circle -- a mix of family members, old friends, and friends who became family members -- have vaulted into the Russian Forbes list. Some are wealthy businessmen linked to the oil and gas sector. A few have no obvious explanation for where they got their millions. But they're all united by one thing -- their closeness to Russia's most powerful man.
Click on their names to learn more.
Roman
Putin
StroytransgazSanctioned
Stroytransgaz is a construction company that often wins contracts from Gazprom and other state energy companies. It is owned by Gennady Timchenko. Though much of its work focuses on natural resources, it is also building stadiums in Volgograd and Nizhny Novgorod for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
Volga GroupNot sanctioned
Volga Group is a company that consolidates the assets of Gennady Timchenko, the wealthiest of Vladimir Putin’s friends.
UNKNOWN
NOVATEKSanctioned
Novatek is a major natural gas producer partially owned by Gennady Timchenko. Its largest shareholder is Leonid Mikhelson, named by Forbes as Russia’s richest man in 2017.
GUNVORNot sanctioned
Gunvor is one of the world’s largest commodity traders, co-founded by Gennady Timchenko and Torbjörn Törnqvist. Timchenko sold his stake to Törnqvist shortly before US sanctions were introduced in 2014.
Ten percent of the company is owned by Pyotr Kolbin, an old childhood friend of Vladimir Putin who is noteworthy for living a modest life, having once worked as a butcher. In 2012, he told the Russian business daily Vedomosti that he is “not a businessman.”
$500,000,000 (in 2014)
Yamal LNGNot sanctioned
Yamal LNG is a company with a license to exploit the enormous Yuzhno-Tambeiskoye gas field in far-northern Russia. According to the company’s estimates, the field has reserves of 926 billion cubic meters of natural gas.It is partly owned by Pyotr Kolbin, an old childhood friend of Vladimir Putin who is noteworthy for living a modest life, having once worked as a butcher. In 2012, he told the Russian business daily Vedomosti that he is “not a businessman.”
Childhood friend
Owner
(Arkadiy)
Owners (Arkadiy
& Boris)
$0
* - Deputy chairman of the
management board
GUNVOR
Father/Son
Gennady TimchenkoSanctioned
Gennady Timchenko is, by far, the richest of Putin’s acquaintances. He is listed as Russia’s fourth-wealthiest businessman in the Russian Forbes’ 2017 rankings, having amassed a fortune of $16 billion.Timchenko’s main assets consist of shares in Novatek, a natural gas producer, Sibur, the country’s largest integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company, and Stroytransgaz, a construction holding that often wins contracts from Gazprom and other state energy companies.Timchenko decreased his stakes in some of these businesses, or sold his shares entirely, after US sanctions against Putin’s inner circle were introduced in 2014. A new generation of owners emerged from some of the same families around the Russian president. According to a Reuters report, Timchenko sold some of his Sibur shares to Kirill Shamalov, the husband of Putin’s daughter Katerina. Timchenko’s daughter, Ksenia Frank, has also become a wealthy woman in recent years, after he transferred shares in Gazprom’s insurance company SOGAZ to her.
DCMB*
Volga
Group
Pyotr KolbinSanctioned
As the TV channel Dozhd discovered in 2016 after speaking to his family friends and neighbors, Pyotr Kolbin is an old childhood friend of Vladimir Putin. He’s noteworthy, on this list, for living a modest life, having once worked as a butcher. In 2012, he told the Russian business daily Vedomosti that he is “not a businessman.”Nevertheless, approximately between 2005 and 2010, Kolbin owned 10 percent of Timchenko’s Gunvor, one of the world’s largest commodity traders. Timchenko sold his own stake in Gunvor to Torbjörn Törnquist, his co-founder, right before the US sanctions were introduced in 2014.Until a 2009 Novaya Gazeta investigation, Kolbin’s stake in Gunvor was never revealed. After an inquiry from reporters, Gunvor lawyers replied with an angry letter threatening legal action.
Sometime in 2009 or 2010, Kolbin became the owner of a 25.1 percent stake in Yamal LNG, a project with a license to exploit the enormous Yuzhno-Tambeiskoye gas field in far-northern Russia. He purchased the shares from Gazprombank for 2.6 billion rubles ($81.8 million) and sold it to Timchenko’s Novatek for $526 million in 2011.
NOVATEK
Kirill ShamalovNot sanctioned
Kirill Shamalov is the husband of Putin’s daughter, Katerina. The couple held their wedding at the Igora ski resort not far from St. Petersburg in 2013, according to Reuters. Kirill is the son of Putin’s old friend, Nikolai Shamalov.Kirill Shamalov benefitted personally from the United States’ 2014 decision to sanction Gennady Timchenko, who then decided to do some rapid unloading. That year, he sold his 17 percent stake in Sibur, Russia’s largest integrated gas processing and petrochemicals company, to Shamalov, who was working as the company’s deputy chairman of the management board .To finance that purchase, Shamalov was able to take out a loan from Gazprombank using his assets as collateral, according to an RBC report. Moreover, his older brother Yuri is on the board of Gazprombank. The income from the sale of those shares in 2017 was more than enough to cover the loan. The sale was estimated at over $2 billion, according to Vedomosti business daily.
Stroy-
Transgaz
Nikolai ShamalovSanctioned
Nikolai Shamalov, a former dentist from St. Petersburg, is an old friend of Vladimir Putin.Shamalov is known for his involvement in a scheme to profit from the sale of medical equipment to state medical centers. The plot involved receiving funds from Roman Abramovich and other major businessmen intended to purchase equipment for state hospitals, using them to buy the equipment at a discount, and moving the remaining money to offshore companies as profit. These funds were used for a variety of purposes - some were used to help build Vladimir Putin’s notorious “Palace” on the Black Sea, some was used by Shamalov himself to buy a stake in Bank Rossiya.Another portion was loaned to Mikhail Shelomov, the son of Putin’s cousin Lyubov Shelomova (See: Shelomov story).
SIBUR
700,000,000
Arkadiy Rotenberg & Boris RotenbergSanctioned
The Rotenberg brothers are Putin’s old childhood friends. Arkadiy, once his judo sparring partner, has amassed a fortune worth $2.6 billion, according to Forbes. Boris has $1 billion.In addition to the list of wealthiest Russians, Arkadiy also appears near the top of Forbes’ “Kings of State Contracts” lists, meaning he often wins some of the country’s most lucrative state contracts.Among Arkadiy’s highest-profile projects is the construction of a massive bridge from the Russian mainland to the recently incorporated Ukrainian territory of Crimea. He is also one of the largest contract winners from Gazprom, the massive state energy giant. His construction group Stroygazmontazh (SGM Group) is building gas pipelines all across the country.
GAZFOND
Roman RotenbergSanctioned
Roman Rotenberg is the son of Boris Rotenberg, an old childhood friend of Vladimir Putin.Roman was sanctioned after buying Langvik Capital, a Finnish hotel company, from his father and uncle in 2014 after they were placed under US sanctions.
SGM
Group
Igor RotenbergNot sanctioned
Igor Rotenberg is the son of Arkadiy Rotenberg, one of Russia’s most successful “contract kings” and an old childhood friend (and judo sparring partner) of Vladimir Putin.Igor owns a number of companies engaged in energy and real estate.His main businesses are Gazprom Burenie, one of the country’s biggest drilling groups, which receives contracts from Gazprom, and TEK Mosenergo, a large engineering company that works on energy infrastructure. He also has a stake in the Tula Cartridge Works, a major ammunition company.
Mikhail PutinNot sanctioned
He is a deputy chairman of the management board of SOGAZ, the insurance group of the state energy giant Gazprom. From 2000 Mikhail Putin worked for Russia’s ministry of health. Between 2004 and 2007 he was the head of Gazprom’s medical department.
SMP
Bank
Gazprom
Burenie