Oligarch with Hunter Biden Connection Avoids Sanction ListVicky Ward Investigates
Apr 27
Last week, I brought you news of Jared Kushner’s dealings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and some reasons, not previously reported, as to why MBS (as he is known) might want to invest $2 billion in Kushner’s new fund, even over the objections of the fund’s advisors. I will be staying on that story, so stay tuned for more to come.
In the meanwhile, I received a document that raises questions about a different president’s relative: Hunter Biden.
This document appears to show that, in 2012, Hunter Biden and, separately, someone unnamed but apparently affiliated with Rosemont Realty—a real estate company Biden consulted for—was scheduled to meet with the still-unsanctioned Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who owns a tech-oriented conglomerate, including the Russian mobile phone company, MTS, and who, according to Private Eye, was summoned recently to the Kremlin by Putin and told “to work in solidarity with the government over the Ukraine crisis.”
Yevtushenkov is a friend and associate of Elena Baturina, who was an investor in Rosemont Realty at the time of the scheduled meeting with Yevtushenkov, according to two people with direct knowledge. A key liaison for Baturina at Rosemont Realty was Biden’s former close friend and business partner Devon Archer, who was on the company’s board, says a source with firsthand knowledge. (Archer is currently sentenced to a year and a day in jail for bond fraud.)
It was Archer who separately introduced Hunter Biden to Baturina, who in turn introduced him to Yevtushenkov, say two sources with knowledge. A 2020 Senate GOP report indicated that, in 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to “Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC,” a different consulting company allegedly co-founded by Biden and Archer. (Biden has not been charged with a crime, though the U.S. Attorney in Delaware continues to investigate his international business dealings for possible money laundering, tax violations, or acting as an unregistered foreign lobbyist. Baturina, like Vetushenkov, remains unsanctioned.)
So, who is Yevtushenkov? He is the largest of Russia’s tech-oriented investors. His holding company, Sistema AFK, is traded on the London Stock Exchange. Its biggest subsidiary, MTS, is a telecom company that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Private Eye recently reported that MTS is currently under pressure, with Vodafone suspending its partnership post the Ukraine invasion and that, in an effort to avoid sanctions, in March Sistema reduced its MTS ownership to 49.94 per cent, although Yevtushenenkov’s son, Felix, remains the chairman. Until recently, Sistema owned RTI, one of the single largest defense contractors in Russia. (It is now controlled by the State.)
And Yevtushenkov—who used to show up at the Global Economic Forum in Davos with Ukraine’s pro-Russia former President, Viktor Yanukovych, according to an eyewitness who spoke on the condition of anonymity, has never spoken out publicly against the war with Ukraine. Further he was part of the group of oligarchs summoned to the Kremlin personally by Putin at the outset of the war.
But he remains strangely unsanctioned by the U.S. Why?
https://vickyward.substack.com/p/exclusive-oligarch-with-hunter-biden
