Sechin: “Khodorkovsky and Co. are not saints and never have been. “I’m working hard, trying to increase capitalization.” (FT Interview) Comforted in the arms of the racer

By the decision of the Basmanny District Court of October 10, 2016, the information expressed in hidden statements that the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin is associated with one of the most luxurious yachts in the world was recognized as untrue and discrediting the honor and dignity of Igor Ivanovich Sechin, and therefore subject to refutation. - with the yacht “Princess Olga”; yacht "St. Princess Olga" is the property of Igor Sechin and/or his wife; Igor Sechin hides information about his foreign property; Igor Sechin's expenses significantly exceed his official income and the official income of his family members.

The secret of "Princess Olga"

How is the head of Rosneft Igor Sechin connected with one of the most luxurious yachts in the world?

Until today, the name of the owner of the luxury megayacht St. Princess Olga was kept strictly secret. However, Novaya Gazeta discovered photographs from the yacht on social networks published by the wife of one of the most influential people in Russia, Igor Sechin. The details in these photos are very similar to those in St. Princess Olga. Moreover: the places in the photo coincide with the yacht’s route.

In 2013, the shipbuilding company Oceanco from the Netherlands launched a luxurious and elegant yacht almost the size of a football field (85.6 meters). The vessel's hull is made of steel, and the above-deck structures are made of aluminum. The exterior of the yacht was designed by Russian designer Igor Lobanov, and the interiors were designed by elite designer from Italy Alberto Pinto. At the stern of the yacht there is a swimming pool, which, if necessary, turns into a helipad; on the upper deck there is a jacuzzi surrounded by soft white sofas for relaxation; There is a SPA room and an elevator inside the ship. After launching, the yacht received the code name Y708. But after it was handed over to the owner, the name was changed to St. Princess Olga (“Holy Princess Olga”). Today St. Princess Olga ranks 72nd in the ranking of the 100 largest yachts in the world. But experts in the world of luxury yachts believe that its main advantage is not its size, but its uniqueness.

"Private party"

Igor Sechin divorced his first wife several years ago. In June 2016, Life.ru published a video from one of the closed parties at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Igor Sechin received guests at the Pavlovsk Museum-Reserve. The head of the state company Rosneft was accompanied by a beautiful girl with blond hair. Novaya Gazeta found the profiles of this girl on the social networks Facebook and Instagram. She turned out to be Olga Rozhkova, who, according to sources close to the Rosneft company, previously worked in the government apparatus when Igor Sechin was Deputy Prime Minister. We also managed to obtain documentary evidence that Olga Rozhkova changed her last name to Sechina in 2011, however, in order not to violate the law “On Personal Data,” we cannot publish the document.

(See from 15 seconds. Video: Life.ru)

Olga Sechina works at the state-owned Gazprombank. Novaya Gazeta's source at the bank says that her annual salary could be approximately 35 million rubles. Judging by photographs on social networks, Sechina spends most of her time abroad. Her Instagram account contains many photographs from private jets, but even more from a yacht off the coast of the fashionable resorts of Sardinia and Corsica.

External similarities

On August 27, 2014, Olga Sechina posted a photo on Instagram from a yacht, where she was relaxing with a friend near a round jacuzzi surrounded by white sofas ( Photo 1). On July 5, 2015, Sechina published a photo ( Photo 2) in which she sits on the deck near the pool. On August 1 of that year, she posted a photo from the same deck, by the same pool ( Photo 3).

Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3

The details in these photographs - the jacuzzi, the sofas around it, the pool, sun loungers, tables - surprisingly resemble the exterior of the St. Princess Olga ( Photo 4, Photo 5). Other photos from Sechina’s social networks show that the yacht on which she spends time flies the flag of the Cayman Islands ( Photo 6). St. Princess Olga is also owned by Cayman Islands company Serlio Shipping Ltd.

However, external similarities are not the only evidence that indicates that Olga Sechina uses the St yacht. Princess Olga. Novaya Gazeta analyzed geotags from Sechina’s photographs, as well as the yacht’s routes, and it turned out that in many cases they coincide.

Route intersections

On July 13, 2016, Olga Sechina published a photo from a motor boat with the geotag “Ibiza, Spain” ( Photo 7). Three days earlier, a photo of the St. yacht was published on Superior Design's Facebook page. Princess Olga from the port of Adriano, in the Balearic Islands, near Ibiza ( Photo 8). On July 14, 2016, the day after Sechina published a photo from Ibiza, Instagram user @carolfeith, who was riding in the area of ​​the same Balearic Islands on a motor boat, posted video yachts St. Princess Olga ( Photo 9).

On July 19, 2015, the wife of the head of Rosneft published a photograph from Venice ( Photo 10). According to the portal vesseltracker.com, which tracks the movements of ships, exactly on the same day, July 19, 2015, the yacht St. Princess Olga ( Photo 11). (Portals like vesseltracker.com use data from AIS, an automatic identification system installed on ships, in their analytics.)

On May 4, 2015, Olga Sechina posted a photo from the island of Capri on Instagram ( Photo 12). And again on the same day, May 4, the AIS system showed that the yacht St. Princess Olga was located near the same island of Capri ( Photo 13).

On June 14, 2014, Sechina published a photograph of a picturesque rocky coast ( Photo 14). Her Instagram follower asked in Italian: “Where are you?” “Corsica,” Sechina replied. And again exactly on the same day, according to the AIS system, the yacht St. Princess Olga was near Corsica ( Photo 15).

In total, we were able to find six unconditional matches in terms of publication time and geotags of photographs from the social networks of Igor Sechin’s wife with the yacht’s route. And these coincidences did not occur in one year, but continuously over the past three years. Moreover, we took into account only those cases when everything coincided - both time and place. But there were examples when the geotag from the photo and the location of the boat coincided, but the time differed by several days or a week. This may be due to the fact that Olga Sechina did not publish photos on social networks immediately, but later.

How much does it cost

Novaya Gazeta interviewed several experts in the world of luxury yachts, and they all said that the exact price of St. No one knows Princess Olga except the manufacturer and the customer. Prices for megayachts depend on interior details and many other factors. But everyone agreed that St. Princess Olga costs at least $100 million. On the websites of companies that sell and rent luxury yachts, there are offers for similar vessels of the same class, the same year of manufacture and similar characteristics. The price for such yachts varies around 150-180 million dollars.

Last year, the BBC agency, citing a decision of the Rosneft board of directors, reported that Igor Sechin’s salary with bonuses could be approximately $12 million a year. If these estimates are correct, then the head of Rosneft could hardly afford to buy such a yacht.

Theoretically, Igor Sechin could rent a yacht for his wife. But even with his officially high income, the rent of St. Princess Olga would have hit the family budget hard. Offers for weekly charter of yachts like St. Princess Olga, start at $1 million. And, judging by the photographs, Olga Sechina has spent quite a lot of time on the yacht over the past three years.

The press service of Rosneft did not answer Novaya Gazeta’s questions in substance. “The company does not consider it possible to answer questions regarding the personal life and property of employees beyond the requirements of the law, and cannot afford to create unacceptable precedents. However, your illegal collection and use of unverified and inaccurate information may result in legal liability. “We regret that the content of your requests over the past month falls into the context of an obvious targeted campaign launched against Rosneft and its leader,” the company said in a statement.

The “gray cardinal” of all Rus', Igor Sechin, who heads Rosneft, earns more per hour than an honored teacher or doctor of the highest category earns for a month of hard work, but his appetites are growing every year and are already beginning to threaten national security (read: the current government) . In 2015, Sechin’s income, according to information provided by Rosneft, amounted to about 600 million rubles, and in May 2017 the media reported that the board of Rosneft increased its bonus payments by 6 times against the backdrop of a 5-fold drop in the company’s profits - As a result, 11 people on the company’s board received a total remuneration of 2 billion rubles (versus 337 million rubles a year ago). Sechin is known for his mercilessness and impunity regarding any of his actions, and also, according to a number of entrepreneurs, for his participation in raider seizures of other people's property.

According to Vedomosti newspaper and magazine Forbes, since 2009 he is the second most influential person in Russia after Vladimir Putin. And in the last two years it has been heard more and more often: Putin said one thing, but Sechin did it differently. Putin said “reduce production,” Sechin said “we won’t cut anything.” Putin said “not to allow state-owned companies to privatize Bashneft,” and Sechin somehow went ahead and bought Bashneft one day. And the strengthening of his power has occurred in the last 3 years, just when the first information appeared that Putin was dissatisfied with Sechin.

In November 2016, the current Minister of Economy of the Russian Federation, Alexei Ulyukaev, was detained at the Rosneft office (and this was the first case of the arrest of a sitting minister of our country since the arrest of Beria in 1953), who arrived there at the personal invitation of Sechin. As the media reported: “Together with Sechin’s people, Ulyukaev went into the office, where two suitcases with money were prepared especially for him. He took one himself, but couldn’t take the second because he was holding his briefcase in his other hand. A company security officer volunteered to help him. Going down to the exit, Ulyukaev put the suitcase in the official car, and at that moment he was detained by FSB officers." Ultimately, Ulyukaev was charged with extorting a bribe of $2 million from a representative of the Rosneft company.

One of the victims of the appetites of Russian oligarch No. 1 was Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s AFK Sistema, which owns MTS, Detsky Mir, Medsi, assets in the defense industry and microelectronics, and previously Bashneft itself. In 2014, Yevtushenkov was even arrested, but due to mass protest and misunderstanding of representatives of big business, he was released. According to the Business FM radio station, at that time there were versions of a conflict between Yevtushenkov and the head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, who allegedly claimed to take over Bashneft or enter the company’s capital.

The lawsuit between AFK Sistema and Rosneft has been going on for a long time, and, as reported in June, shareholders of AFK Sistema have lost more than 150 billion rubles due to Rosneft's lawsuit. On July 19, a regular court hearing on this case took place in Ufa, which puzzled many observers. Observers have already dubbed the Ufa hearings “medieval,” and AFK Sistema even complained to the Kremlin about the judge’s actions. The point is that the company’s representatives provided the court with evidence of their innocence (although, in theory, on the contrary, the other party should prove their guilt), but no one even began to read them, apparently fearing the wrath of the powerful Igor Ivanovich.

Magazine Forbes, who interviewed various independent experts on the matter, wrote that “Rosneft has often been described in terms of a military camp, in which every employee is a soldier, constrained by strict discipline and hierarchy. Igor Sechin, who is rumored to start his working day in 5 am, keeps this entire mechanism under full manual control.

The majority of respondents assessed the conflict with the “System” from a conceptual position: respondents questioned the presence of legal arguments in this conflict. Sistema had an asset that the previous owner managed based on his ideas about efficiency: he reorganized something, sold it, entered into contracts. But an increase in production by 46% and capitalization by 8 times did not convince either Sechin or the court that AFK knows how to manage assets. Considering that Rosneft suffers from chronic inefficiency and all its growth in performance is due solely to raids on competitors, the misunderstanding is understandable. How do they know what it means to create value.

Representatives of AFK Sistema provided the court with a dossier on the experts who prepared the conclusion from Rosneft. It follows from this dossier that they did not, in principle, have any research competence to resolve the issues posed to them in the Rosneft matter. However, the court ignored this and refused to conduct an independent examination. And the decision makers from Rosneft even stated at the trial that no special knowledge was required to understand the situation (how familiar this is, right?).

Currently, the consideration of Rosneft’s claim against AFK Sistema has been postponed until August 8, and in the remaining days, everyone who does not want to become the next victim of Rosneft has time to comprehend the situation and somehow publicly state their position. Otherwise, tomorrow Sechin and his comrades will come for your business, and there will be no one to protect you either.

Photo: kremlin.ru

The head of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, has recently begun to encounter more and more troubles, to which he is still not accustomed. This is evident from numerous news reports, and this is also true in conversation with NT officials state. Sechin himself provoked attacks on himself, a high-ranking source notes. According to him, the head of the state-owned company chose a very aggressive style of behavior and eventually began to face active opposition, including from influential forces.

Prosecutor's office and court

This week, without exaggeration, an unprecedented event took place. The court decided to summon Sechin to the trial in the case of ex-Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev. Moreover, it was the prosecutor’s office that requested this, and not the defense.

The prosecutor suddenly remembered Sechin, who is the main witness of the events incriminated against Ulyukaev, at the 15th court hearing. After the presentation of material evidence and the doubts expressed by the lawyer about it, the prosecutor asked the judge whether the subpoena had been sent to Sechin. When the judge gave a negative answer, the prosecutor asked to send a subpoena to the head of Rosneft, and this request was immediately granted. Sechin has no legal grounds to refuse the invitation.

Until now, officials of Sechin’s level have been in court extremely rarely, if anyone can be considered at the level of the head of Rosneft. In 2010, the Minister of Industry Viktor Khristenko and the head of Sberbank German Gref testified in the second Yukos case, and in 2009 the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin came to the trial in the case of bribery of his former subordinate. Finally, in 2006, Alexey Kudrin came to the trial of a former employee of the Ministry of Finance. All other attempts to summon high officials to court ended in failure. In particular, the court refused to summon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s lawyers to the trial of Sechin, who was also considered an interested party in that case.

It is important that the summons to court was not the first trouble for Sechin from the prosecutor’s office. In early September, the prosecutor publicly read out the dialogue between Sechin and Ulyukaev on the day when the ex-minister, according to investigators, took a bribe. At the same time, the prosecutor highlighted information that Sechin gave Ulyukaev a certain “basket”, which, as it turned out later, contained sausage.

Sechin eventually had to explain things to Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. The interlocutor does not disclose the details of the conversation, but claims that it took place over the phone, Sechin called himself

Judging by Sechin's public reaction, he was furious at this development of events. “This is professional cretinism. There are things that must be closed from all sides and from all points of view. There shouldn’t even be a thought that this could be made public! There is information there that contains state secrets,” he told Kommersant, commenting on the actions of the prosecutor’s office.

According to an informed interlocutor NT, Sechin eventually had to explain himself to Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika. The interlocutor does not disclose the details of the conversation, but claims that it took place over the phone (Sechin called himself) and Chaika was satisfied with the conversation.

Surprise from Sberbank

In mid-October, analysts from the investment division of Sberbank sent out a report to clients, mostly English-speaking, one of the chapters of which was devoted to the prospects for the development of Rosneft’s business. The report did not immediately come to the attention of the media, but as soon as it did, a scandal erupted. The report, both in its meaning and in its wording, looked like an outright challenge.

As was the case with the reaction to the events surrounding the Ulyukaev trial, Rosneft did not hide its emotions. “There is a feeling that the people who compiled the report are on the verge of pathology”

The content is not much better. It, in particular, speaks of experts’ disappointment with the company’s activities: it was expected that it would reduce debt, but instead it directed $22 billion to acquisitions “without a clear focus.” In general, the authors clearly assessed the company’s potential low, including stating that after 2019, Rosneft’s organic growth will leave much to be desired.

As was the case with the reaction to the events surrounding the Ulyukaev trial, Rosneft did not hide its emotions. “There is a feeling that the people who compiled the report are on the verge of pathology,” company press secretary Mikhail Leontyev commented on the report to reporters.

As a result, Sberbank had to issue a new report and admit that the old one was published with violations. The most offensive language was removed from the new document, but the general meaning remained the same. For example, the phrase “The problem is that organic growth will be too slow to satisfy the CEO’s ambitions” was replaced with “The problem is that organic growth will be too slow to satisfy the company’s ambitions.”

Abroad and Surkov

Sechin also came into the spotlight due to new revelations. In early November, the results of an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) were published into the leak of information from the offshore registrar Appleby, located in Bermuda. The data concerning Sechin became the basis for a request from Transparency International - Russia to the Prosecutor General's Office.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has long been well acquainted with the version of Sechin’s involvement in the transfer of information for Navalny’s film “He’s Not Dimon to You”

According to journalists, Sechin’s ex-wife Marina received shares in several Russian companies, and in 2012 S Holdings Ltd was registered in her name in the Cayman Islands. The company was needed to implement development projects of a foreign entrepreneur; Sechina’s company was supposed to become an investor capable of investing tens of millions of euros in a chain of offshore companies to implement projects in Russia. Transparency was perplexed by the origin of the funds with which Sechin could conduct business. In 2011, judging by her husband’s declaration, she had no income at all.

Another scandal at the beginning of November was initiated by ex-State Duma deputy Ilya Ponomarev living abroad. On the air of Echo of Moscow, he said that the information for the compromising Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s film “He’s Not Dimon” to its author, Alexei Navalny, was given by Sechin’s people. The former head of the Rosneft security service, Oleg Feoktistov, who was close to Sechin, passed on the information, the ex-deputy claimed. Feoktistov later left Rosneft and returned to the FSB, but was fired from there too. According to Ponomarev, this also happened due to the transfer of data to Navalny.

It is important that Ponomarev is not only a fugitive oppositionist. He is considered close to presidential aide Vladislav Surkov. In the 1990s, both worked for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and in the early 2010s, Ponomarev was an adviser to the president of the Skolkovo Foundation, whose activities Surkov supervised in the Kremlin. When Ponomarev was expelled from the State Duma, he publicly stated that the real target of the attack was not he, but Surkov.

Ponomarev is not taken seriously in Russia. But in this case, its interpretation is shared by the government. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has long been well acquainted with the version of Sechin’s involvement in transmitting information for Navalny’s film about him, says an interlocutor close to the Kremlin NT. The information expressed by Navalny appeared in the public field more than once before the appearance of the film “He’s Not Dimon for You,” and one gets the feeling that it was promoted by someone very influential, the source notes. NT. He also considers it likely that it was people close to Sechin who did this.

Medvedev and Putin

The long-standing struggle between Medvedev and Sechin has escalated again, a Kremlin source agrees. Since Medvedev headed the government, the cabinet of ministers and Rosneft have had many disagreements. The government and Sechin have been wresting authority over the management of the oil and gas industry from each other for several years now. Its official curator is specialized Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, who is close to Medvedev, but it was Sechin who became the executive secretary of the presidential commission on the strategy for the development of the fuel and energy complex. The opposing sides had different attitudes to the issue of privatization of Bashneft (Aleksey Ulyukaev publicly opposed the plans of the state-owned company) and to how to sell Rosneft shares.

It is generally accepted that in the end Medevedev decided to fight back, says another source close to the presidential administration. According to his version, it was the prime minister who ensured that the trial of Ulyukaev was public and took place in such a way that Sechin could only snap at the prosecutor’s office. Initially it was planned that the process would take place behind closed doors.

President Vladimir Putin, not approving of Sechin’s overly aggressive style, actually sided with his opponents. It was Putin who agreed with the government’s arguments and gave permission for an open trial of Ulyukaev, admits a person from the close circle of the head of state.

It was the prime minister who ensured that the trial of Ulyukaev was public and took place in such a way that Sechin could only snap at the prosecutor’s office. It was originally planned that the process would take place behind closed doors.

Previously, Putin had already besieged Sechin. Thus, during the conflict between Rosneft and the company AFK Sistema, he told reporters that he had met with both parties to the conflict and expected them to conclude a settlement agreement.

In general, everyone is now waiting to see how Sechin’s numerous conflicts will end, says a person close to the presidential administration. Medvedev will most likely seek to weaken his opponent’s position, and Putin’s reaction to this is difficult to predict. In the end, the interlocutor reasons, if a person irritates so many people, one day everyone will unite against one.

Rosneft President Igor Sechin, in an interview with the German business weekly Der Spiegel, called the suggestion that he could be the organizer of the destruction of Yukos a “myth”, and said that Russian law enforcement agencies have information that former Yukos shareholders Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Leonid Nevzlin plan to take revenge on him. A fragment of the interview was published on the publication’s website, the full text is available by paid subscription.

“Today YUKOS is presented by many as an innocent victim of an evil aggressor. This is nonsense. I will tell you about my first contact with YUKOS. In the fall of 1999, I had just been appointed head of the secretariat of the government of [Vladimir] Putin, when Vasily Shakhnovsky, one of the shareholders of YUKOS, showed up at my door without an invitation. He quickly and directly offered me a bribe. At this moment, we don’t need anything from you, he said, we want to pay you money regularly so that you respect our interests. I drove this gentleman out of my office. Later, Khodorkovsky called it this way: Yukos and I were unable to build mutual understanding with each other,” said the Rosneft president.

When asked what it meant to Khodorkovsky, who had just been released from prison, an attempt to joke or humiliate him, Sechin clarified that “he said that he could contact our personnel department.”

“Then these gentlemen were not joking at all. If someone stood in their way, they immediately cleared the way for themselves. The Yukos sunrise is paved with corpses. This was established by the Russian court,” Sechin stated.

About the Pichugin case

During the conversation, the editors of Der Spiegel noted that Khodorkovsky, in one of his written interviews with the publication in 2010 (then the ex-head of YUKOS was in prison) claimed that the company had never used physical violence.

“They couldn’t prove participation in the murders against Khodorkovsky, but they could prove it to his employee, as well as to his closest person, Leonid Nevzlin. I doubt that Khodorkovsky, as the head of the company, knew nothing about all this,” Sechin noted. The President of Rosneft clarified that he meant the murder of the mayor of Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov and others. “Valentina Korneeva, the owner of a Moscow tea shop, was shot in the head because she did not want to give her business to Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Menatep bank, which needed land there. There were also attempts to deal with inconvenient minority shareholders. Nevzlin's employees hired bandits for this. One swindler, whose name is Gorin, tried to blackmail Khodorkovsky, they were maliciously killed in the garage, their bodies were destroyed, only a few traces of brains remained on the floor,” Sechin said in an interview.

Former head of the Yukos security service Alexei Pichugin was convicted in the cases of the murders of Petukhov, the Gorins, Korneeva, as well as the assassination attempt on Khodorkovsky’s ex-adviser Olga Kostina, and the beating of the former head of the Rosprom CJSC Viktor Kolesov. According to law enforcement agencies, he acted on the “order” of Leonid Nevzlin. Pichugin was sentenced to life imprisonment. He himself denied guilt and appealed to the ECHR, which found the verdict unfair.

Sechin noted that he knows about these murders and, in particular, knows the names of the victims from his time in the presidential administration (he worked as deputy head of the Kremlin administration since 1999, and as assistant to the president from 2004 to 2008).

“Besides, I care about all this. It's time to look at these things objectively. Khodorkovsky and Co. are not saints and never have been. These are people who are not afraid of anything. Our law enforcement agencies have information that Khodorkovsky and Nevzlin are also plotting revenge, including me,” said the head of Rosneft.

About European courts

Sechin did not rule out that the Hague Tribunal and the ECHR, which awarded $50 billion and €1.86 billion to the ex-YUKOS shareholders, respectively, “had a political motive,” since the former YUKOS shareholders launched a “large international PR campaign.”

“Lawyers are questioning the arbitration tribunal's decision because the tribunal, according to the decision, does not comply with the Energy Charter. The charter, however, protects foreign investors. Where do you see them? The ex-shareholders of YUKOS are Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Leonid Nevzlin, Russians, they extracted Russian oil. They registered their company with offshore companies. They obtained YUKOS by violating Russian laws and obtaining it for $300 million through a loan from the Ministry of Finance, which was never repaid. Competitors were excluded from the auction. Two enterprises - Khodorkovsky's bank Menatep and the Volna company - competed fiercely with each other [at the competition]. “I say this with irony,” said the head of Rosneft.

About property issues

In response to the words that Rosneft also grew because it acquired the enterprises of the broken YUKOS, Sechin retorted that Rosneft “only bought parts of the former enterprises of YUKOS, as the Italian concerns Eni and Enel, or Gazprom also did.” . “All the big energy concerns absorbed others,” he concluded.

According to Sechin, in the YUKOS case we are not talking about issues of ownership of enterprises, “we are talking about a crime.” “When it comes to the issue of property rights, this is about efficiency. In the 90s, they thought that a class of private entrepreneurs would be created who, thanks to effective management, would pay high taxes to the state. That did not happen. The entire oil and gas sector was privatized for less than $7 billion. Two years ago, we alone, with BP’s 12% stake in Rosneft, achieved more, adjusted for inflation, of course,” Sechin said.

He did not directly answer the question of whether, in his opinion, energy concerns should be owned by the state. “Regulation, I think, is the most important thing. We also decided to reduce the state's share in Rosneft. But the state will still have a controlling stake. This is a plus for our minority shareholders. Because according to Russian legislation, only state-owned companies have the right to develop offshore fields,” he said.

The Yukos affair did not harm the investment climate in Russia, the head of Rosneft believes. According to him, YUKOS, “using offshore companies, deceived shareholders,” and today in Russia “there is greater transparency, fairer taxation, and greater legal guarantees for business.”

About US sanctions

Sechin called the US sanctions against him personally and against Rosneft devoid of “any basis” and violating international law. “Neither I nor my company have anything to do with the crisis in Ukraine,” he emphasized. Sechin noted that the sanctions apply to the company’s Western partners. “I find it strange that Rosneft is included in this list despite the fact that no other Russian company works so closely with American and European partners,” Sechin said.

In his opinion, extending sanctions to companies and dragging enterprises into a political conflict is a “false path.” “Sanctions are a type of war. This is how hatred is sown, and vindictiveness comes into play,” Sechin said.

In response to the words that the United States imposed sanctions against Sechin in order to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, Sechin stated: “Then the West does not know Putin well. Putin never allows pressure on him.” He denied that he was giving advice to the head of state regarding the situation in Ukraine. “It’s absurd to suggest that I influence him in such a situation. My relationship with him is not such that I can come to him with such questions. This idea is as absurd as including me on the sanctions list,” said the head of Rosneft.

At the same time, he emphasized that sanctions do not prevent Rosneft from fully fulfilling all supply obligations. According to Sechin, the technologies whose supplies were subject to sanctions relate to future Rosneft projects, but the reserves that the company can produce today with the funds at its disposal “will be enough for 20 years.”

“However, let me quote one expert. Juan Zarate, adviser to ex-President George W. Bush, who wrote in his book Treasury's War that America will continue to wage a new type of war. This war will be waged without military intervention, it will bleed the enemy financially,” added the head of Rosneft " When asked for clarification whether he believes that the United States is waging such a war against Russia, Sechin replied: “No, I’m just quoting.”

In the material, the editors of Der Spiegel also describe that when they arrived at the meeting, Sechin handed them his business card, on which was written: “no name, no company, no adress” (“no name, no company, no address”).

About help from the National Welfare Fund

Sechin added that, despite the sanctions, Rosneft intends to fully and independently fulfill all its obligations. He noted that Rosneft’s net profit for the first half of 2014, with revenue of $80 billion, amounted to $5 billion, and at the end of the year, a profit of $13.5 billion is predicted. “Not a single Russian enterprise pays more taxes than us. At the end of 2014, this will be about $80 billion,” said the President of Rosneft.

Sechin explained his proposal to allocate 1.5 trillion rubles from the National Welfare Fund to support Rosneft by the company’s desire to develop hard-to-recover oil fields in Eastern Siberia and build an oil refinery. “And if the government provides us with a loan - I emphasize - no subsidies, we will be happy. If not, I don’t see any disaster in this. We will simply postpone our project to a later date. "Rosneft is not experiencing financial difficulties," he said.

About the crisis in Ukraine

According to Sechin, Rosneft, due to the situation in Ukraine, lost $140 million, which was invested in a new oil refining unit at the Lisichansky Oil Refinery. “There were no military operations there, but the Ukrainian army simply razed some of the structures to the ground,” he complained, emphasizing that Rosneft would negotiate with Kiev about compensation.

“[As for the conflict in the south-east of Ukraine], the most important thing there is to stop the bloodshed. A real humanitarian catastrophe is now unfolding there. I would not like to comment on your political assessments,” said the head of Rosneft. He emphasized that the Ukrainian crisis Russia did not initiate it. “This is historical truth, time will shed light on this. As the president of Rosneft, my task is to constantly increase the value of the company entrusted to me. As the largest Russian investor in Germany, we are committed to further joint work. Our principles are trust, long-termism and respect interests of others. I don’t have time for foreign policy issues. I still want to pay attention to my children,” Sechin said.

Alexey Miller, 50 years old

Now Miller calls himself a “sovereign man,” and in the 1980s he was part of the circle of young Leningrad economists-reformers led by Anatoly Chubais; together with Mikhail Dmitriev and Andrei Illarionov, he was a member of the Sintez group. In 1999, Miller came to work at the Committee on External Relations of the St. Petersburg City Hall, which was headed by Putin. Miller oversaw large investment projects, the foreign exchange department and relations with the CIS. Miller was personally devoted to Putin, says his former colleague: their relationship was very trusting.

Alexey Miller went from an engineer-economist at a Leningrad research institute to the head of Gazprom. With the arrival of Miller, the state regained a controlling stake in Gazprom, and the concern regained the assets it had lost under Rem Vyakhirev. True, some of them ended up under the control of Rossiya Bank and Gennady Timchenko. Under Miller, new “oligarchs” grew up on Gazprom contracts, including the Rotenberg brothers, participants in this rating. In 2011, Miller's contract was extended for another five years.

1990 Junior researcher at the Leningrad Financial and Economic Institute Alexey Miller headed the subsection of the committee on economic reform of the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council.

1991 He went to work on the external relations committee of the St. Petersburg mayor's office, where he rose to the rank of deputy chairman of the committee. The chairman was Vladimir Putin.

1996 After Anatoly Sobchak’s failure in the gubernatorial elections, Putin left for Moscow, and Miller became director for development and investment of the St. Petersburg Seaport.

1999 Miller headed the Baltic Pipeline System company for about a year, and then, following his former boss, he moved to Moscow.

2000 In July, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Energy, and 10 months later he was elected Chairman of the Board of Gazprom.

Order bearer. In 2011, Putin awarded Miller a government prize in the field of science and technology for developing technology for the production of high-strength pipes of a new generation for strategic gas transportation projects.

Igor Sechin, 52 years old

Oil

In 1980-1986 he served as a military translator in Angola and Mozambique. “When I became deputy mayor, I looked at many of them, and I liked Sechin. I invited him to come to work with me. This was in 1992-1993. And when he went to work in Moscow, he asked to come with me. I took it,” Putin said in the book “First Person”. In 2000, Putin, having become president, appointed him deputy head of his administration.

Sechin has been in charge of energy and industry for a long time. But his main brainchild is the oil industry. Under Sechin, the state regained many of the industry's assets: Roman Abramovich sold Sibneft to Gazprom, and the assets of Yukos went to Rosneft. Now Rosneft is number one in production in Russia. Thanks to her, most of Russian exports came under the control of another Putin acquaintance, Gennady Timchenko. At its peak, up to a third of seaborne oil exports went through his trader Gunvor. Now, according to Gunvor, this share is no more than 20%. After Putin’s re-election, Sechin received the post of president of Rosneft and the position of executive secretary of the presidential commission on the development of the fuel and energy complex. He is delegated to the board of directors of Rosneftegaz. The company owns about 75% of the shares of Rosneft and 11% of Gazprom and received priority rights to privatize state assets.

1996-1999 After Sobchak’s defeat in the elections, he moved to Moscow with Putin, where he worked in the presidential administration in positions no higher than the head of a department.

1999 On December 31, he became deputy head of the presidential administration, and after Putin’s victory in the elections, he headed the presidential office.

2004 On December 19, the main producing asset of Yukos, Yuganskneftegaz, went to Baikalfinancegroup and then to Rosneft. Later, in an interview with The Sunday Times, Khodorkovsky accused Sechin of organizing criminal cases against himself.

2008 On May 12, he became Deputy Prime Minister of Vladimir Putin. Supervising the fuel and energy complex became his formal responsibility.

2012 President of the state company Rosneft.

personal friend In 1994, Putin's wife Lyudmila was in a car accident and, before she was taken to the hospital, managed to give eyewitnesses Igor Sechin's phone number. She told him to call and ask him to pick up his daughter, who was sleeping in the back seat of the car.

Vladimir Yakunin, 63 years old

Railways

In 1991, Vladimir Yakunin, head of the foreign department of the Physico-Technical Institute. A.F. Ioffe, returned from a business trip to the USA. Together with Yuri Kovalchuk and Andrey Fursenko, he organized the Engineering and Technical Center on the basis of the Svetlana military-industrial complex enterprise. “Together with a group of comrades, I decided to create... the first business center in St. Petersburg. Such decisions were not made without the approval of the city authorities, and I called Putin. He responded and supported,” said Yakunin. One of their subsequent projects was Rossiya Bank. Yakunin was among the first whom Putin attracted to his team, making him head of the presidential control department.

After Yakunin’s appointment as minister, members of the team of previous managers, Fadeev and Aksenenko, left the former Ministry of Railways, and old managers were forced out of the forwarding companies Transrail and Eurosib. Transportation was divided into freight and passenger, trains were given to subsidiaries, one of them, First Freight Company, was sold for 125 billion rubles. The remaining subsidiaries remain under the control of Russian Railways.

1985-199 1 Worked at the UN. He held the position of Secretary of the Permanent Mission of the USSR to the UN.

1991-1995 He created an Engineering and Technical Center on the basis of the Svetlana military-industrial complex enterprise in St. Petersburg. The idea of ​​creating the center was supported by Vladimir Putin. He took part in the creation of Rossiya Bank.

2000 October - Deputy Minister of Transport appointed.

2002 Appointed first deputy minister of railways.

Go€3.45 million, this is how much the carriage of the newest high-speed train “Sapsan” cost Russian Railways. According to the research agency Infranews, China bought the same carriage for an average of €470,000, that is, 7.3 times cheaper.

Sergey Chemezov, 60 years old

Mechanical engineering, communications, defense industry

In 1996, Deputy Presidential Administration Manager Vladimir Putin invited Sergei Chemezov, an acquaintance from his service in the GDR, to oversee foreign economic relations. Three years later, when Putin became prime minister, Chemezov headed one of the two arms export companies - FSUE Promexport. In 2004, he headed Rosoboronexport, a state intermediary for the export and import of military products. The state-owned enterprise began to acquire assets: 66% of the shares of the largest titanium producer VSMPO-Avisma and 61.8% of the shares of AvtoVAZ came under its control. In November 2007, the state corporation Rostekhnologii was created, which absorbed Rosoboronexport. Shares in 426 companies (80% defense companies) came under his control.

During the 2008 crisis, most of them faced problems - through Russian Technologies they received about $4 billion from the budget. At the same time, AvtoVAZ received not only 60% of all anti-crisis injections into the state corporation, but also unprecedented PR support from Putin: in August 2010 year, the prime minister made a motor rally from Khabarovsk to Chita in a yellow Lada Kalina.

1983 Employee of the First Main Directorate of the KGB. He headed the representative office of the Luch association in Dresden, lived in the same house with Vladimir Putin - the officers were family friends.

1989 Deputy director of the foreign trade association Sovintersport, which supplied Western sporting goods to the USSR. According to the recollections of colleagues, Putin often came to Chemezov for advice.

1996 Vladimir Putin invited Chemezov to work in the presidential affairs department.

2000-2007 Work at the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronexport: first first deputy director, then general director.

2007 Headed Russian Technologies.

Partner LLC "Kate", 70% of whose shares are owned by Chemezov's wife Ekaterina Ignatova, develops automatic transmissions for AvtoVAZ. Ignatova is also on the board of directors of Mikhail Prokhorov's MFK bank, where she owns a 13.14% stake.

German Gref, 48 years old

Banks

Gref and Putin came to work at the St. Petersburg mayor's office in 1991. Gref, while remaining a graduate student at the Faculty of Law of Leningrad State University, got a job as a consultant in the administration of the Petrodvortsovy district of St. Petersburg. Putin then headed the mayor's committee for external relations.

One of Putin’s first decisions as Prime Minister in 1999 was to create a center for developing a long-term strategy for the country’s development - the “Center for Strategic Research.” Putin appointed Gref as leader. In May 2000, Gref became Minister of Economic Development and Trade, after which he served in the cabinet for seven years.

Since November 2007, he has been working as president and chairman of the board of Sberbank. He initiated the reform in the state bank, accompanying it with the comment “We will teach an elephant to dance.” During the crisis, Sberbank became one of the main distributors of state aid: by the end of 2008 alone, it received more than 700 billion rubles from the Central Bank to support enterprises and the financial system. Today it is the largest bank in Central and Eastern Europe: its assets are 10.8 trillion rubles, customer funds amount to 7.9 trillion rubles. In The Banker's latest ranking of the 1000 largest banks in the world, Sberbank took 11th place in terms of profit ($12.3 billion before taxes).

1997 He headed the property management committee of St. Petersburg instead of the murdered Mikhail Manevich.

1999 He headed the Center for Strategic Research under the Government of the Russian Federation, created on Putin’s initiative. Under Gref's leadership, the development of Strategy 2010 was completed by May 2000.

2000 Appointed Minister of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT) in the government of Mikhail Kasyanov.

2007 Headed Sberbank. Started a large-scale reform in the bank.

2008 During the crisis, Sberbank became a key element of the government program to combat the crisis, lending to Russian companies and banks.

Talk“Putin: If the guys from the government pool and I decide to deposit money with you, how much interest will you give us?

Gref: ...For six months the rate will be around 5%.

Putin: You are simply swindlers! Few!

Gref: It's true, yes. If for a year, the rate will be, I think, somewhere around 6.5%.

Nikolay Tokarev, 61 years old

Oil transportation

As Tokarev himself said, he met Putin in the mid-1990s in the presidential affairs department, where he dealt with “property issues.” There is another version: Kommersant writes that Tokarev, like Putin, has worked in foreign intelligence since the mid-1980s and was also on a long-term business trip to East Germany.

In 1973, Tokarev graduated from the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute. Regarding what he did next, the official biography says the following: “He worked in various, including management, positions in geological exploration parties of the mining industry.” Having arrived in the presidential administration in 1996, Tokarev crossed paths with Putin and Sechin. In 2000, Tokarev headed the unitary enterprise Zarubezhneft, and in 2007 - Transneft, which manages the system of trunk oil pipelines.

In 2011, Transneft completed its main construction projects of recent years - the ESPO and BTS-2 pipelines. Under Tokarev, Transneft's expenses on major projects exceeded 950 billion rubles.

1996-1999 Deputy General Director of the State Unitary Enterprise for Property Management Abroad, Presidential Administration.

1999-2000 The head of the security service, then vice president of Transneft, was responsible for the foreign economic block, foreign projects and analytics.

2000-2007 General Director of Zarubezhneft.

2007 October - on the recommendation of the Ministry of Economic Development, he was elected president of Transneft, replacing Semyon Vainshtok in this post.

Opening In 2010, Transneft minority shareholder Alexei Navalny published materials allegedly indicating the company’s embezzlement during the construction of ESPO, which he estimated at $4 billion. The head of the Accounts Chamber, Sergei Stepashin, later stated that this figure was not true.

Yuri Kovalchuk, 61 years old

Banks, insurance, media

In 1991, Yuri Kovalchuk left the Physico-Technical Institute. A. F. Ioffe to the Association of Joint Ventures of Leningrad (LenASP). Putin then worked at the mayor’s office and oversaw enterprises with foreign investment, and Kovalchuk at LenASP was responsible for contacts with the mayor’s office. In September 1991, Sobchak ordered to deal with the money and property of Rossiya Bank, established in 1990 with the participation of the Leningrad Regional Committee. Putin was put in charge. Soon, companies associated with Kovalchuk, Yakunin and the Fursenko brothers, among others, became co-owners of the bank.

Soon after Putin became president, Rossiya Bank began to flourish. In the early 2000s, the bank became a “piggy bank” of Gazprom’s non-core assets - from the insurer Sogaz to Gazprombank and Sibur and Gazprom-Media, which were on its balance sheet. In 2004, Kovalchuk became chairman of the board of directors of Rossiya Bank (now chairman of the Advisory Council of Shareholders of ADB Management, which manages the assets of the Rossiya Bank group). Media has become a strategic direction for Kovalchuk; his structures are co-owners of six federal channels.

1996 Together with Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Yakunin, the Fursenko brothers and a number of others, he founded the Ozero dacha cooperative.

2004 Rossiya Bank gained control of Sogaz, which had previously been almost exclusively involved in insuring Gazprom companies. Kovalchuk became chairman of the board of directors and the largest shareholder of the bank.

2005 Kovalchuk began buying up media assets, becoming a major shareholder of the Petersburg Channel Five television channel and the St. Petersburg Vedomosti newspaper.

2008 Created the National Media Group, it owns controlling stakes in REN TV and Channel Five, 25% of Channel One, News Media Publishing House (Izvestia newspaper, LifeNews.ru, Marker.ru), Russian News Service " NMG's largest shareholder is Rossiya Bank.

Heir Yuri Kovalchuk's son Boris began his career at Rossiya Bank, in 2006-2009 he headed the department of national projects in the government, then worked as deputy head of Rosatom Sergei Kiriyenko, and in 2009 he was appointed head of Inter RAO UES.

Arkady Rotenberg, 60 years old

Pipes, construction, alcohol, chemistry

The oldest acquaintance of Vladimir Putin. Rotenberg became friends with the future president in the children's sambo section. In 2001, Rotenberg entered the capital of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) bank; a few years later, FSUE Rosspirtprom opened accounts with the bank. Managers of NPV Engineering, owned by Rotenberg, are on the boards of directors of 18 alcohol and distillery enterprises in Russia. Through management, Rotenberg began to control the vodka industry.

Rotenberg's advance in the pipe business was even more rapid. In 2007, he created the Pipe Metal Rolling company. And already in 2010, she and his brother Boris’s company, Pipe Industry, bought 38% each in the Northern European Pipe Project (SETP), the largest supplier of pipes to Gazprom.

Rotenberg also created a construction empire that carries out large monopoly contracts. According to Rotenberg, it was he who “infected” Putin with hockey. In 2012, the hobby led to very concrete results - Rotenberg became the owner of the Moscow hockey club Dynamo.

2001 Entered the capital of the Northern Sea Route bank.

2007 He created the company Pipe Metal Rolling, a major supplier of pipes to Gazprom, and created the company Stroygazmontazh (SGM). FSUE Rosspirtprom opens accounts in SMP Bank.

2008 He bought five Gazprom companies involved in the construction of gas pipelines and merged them into a holding, headed by SGM.

2011 I bought Rossoshan Minudobreniya, one of the largest Russian producers of nitrogen and complex fertilizers, from the Norwegian Yara.

Monopolist According to the FAS, 93.6% of the pipes were supplied to Gazprom by the Northern European Pipe Project of the Rotenberg brothers in 2010.

Vladimir Strzhalkovsky, 58 years old

Non-ferrous metallurgy

I met Putin in the 1980s during joint service in the USSR KGB department for Leningrad and the region. In 1990, together with his partners, he created and headed the travel company Neva, where he worked until December 1999. After Vladimir Putin was announced as a successor to the presidency, he returned to government service. Having moved to Moscow, he became Deputy Minister of Physical Education, Sports and Tourism, then head of the Federal Tourism Agency.

In August 2008, he moved to the post of General Director at Norilsk Nickel. Strzhalkovsky appointed people without experience in metallurgy to a number of key positions. To jokes about the “team of tourists” that now manages the MMC, the new general director responded with a tough cost-cutting program, which included layoffs, salary cuts and the mothballing of a number of enterprises. Strzhalkovsky headed Norilsk Nickel three months after the start of the corporate war between Vladimir Potanin’s Interros and the shareholders of UC Rusal, led by Oleg Deripaska. Being the “arbiter from the Kremlin,” he was called upon to stop the war, but the war is still going on. Representatives of UC Rusal accuse Strzhalkovsky of supporting Potanin, who, taking advantage of this, makes decisions unfavorable for Rusal.

1980-1991 Service in the USSR KGB department for Leningrad and the Leningrad region. Met Vladimir Putin.

1999 November - appointed Deputy Minister for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism.

2000 Appointed chairman of the State Committee on Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism. In July, he became Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, in charge of tourism.

2004 Appointed head of the Federal Tourism Agency.

2008 The board of directors of MMC Norilsk Nickel appointed him general director.

Pay for labor$55 million is Strzhalkovsky’s total compensation at Norilsk Nickel for four years of work, according to Forbes.

Matthias Warnig, 57 years old

Banks, gas, oil, metallurgy

Matthias Warnig stands out from the list of Putin's friends who have taken commanding heights in the Russian economy. He directly controls the relatively small companies Nord Stream and Gazprom Schweiz AG, the Swiss “granddaughter” of Gazprom. But the German investment banker is on the supervisory boards and boards of directors of five other large Russian companies - Transneft, Rosneft, VTB, Rusal and Rossiya Bank.

1991-1993 Advisor to the Board of Dresdner Bank for the CIS countries, coordinated the opening of the BNP - Dresdner Bank bank in St. Petersburg.

2005 Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank.

2006 Managing Director of Nord Stream.

2011 A member of the board of directors of Rosneft, chairman of the board of directors of Transneft, became the head of Gazprom’s subsidiary, Gazprom Schweiz.

2012 Elected independent director of UC Rusal.

Failure In 2004, Warnig and his companions received the use of the basement of the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace at 41 Nevsky Prospekt. It was planned to create “the best restaurant in St. Petersburg” there. For this purpose, an architect was invited from Germany. But the restaurateur from Warnig did not work out, and the company was sold.