The President has ordered the investigation into the cases of killers Aslan Gagiev and Yevgeny Yashkin, who carried out orders for the former minister, to be expedited, a source reports.
For the past year, the killers suspected of working for former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov have avoided testifying about their sponsors. The killer, Ruslan Yurtov, is on the run. According to the widow of Andrei Burlakov, a top manager at the Financial Leasing Company, he shot her husband, taking orders from Igor Yusufov and his son, Vitaly Yusufov. Burlakov was a shareholder in the German shipyard Nordic Yards, whose stake was seized by the Yusufovs. He dared to accuse the family of corporate raiding. Burlakov was subsequently killed, and Etkina was seriously wounded.
The fragile health of murderers
Yurtov was a member of Aslan Gagiev's gang, nicknamed “Dzhako.” In December, “Dzhako” was unable to be transported to Russia from Austria after he was suddenly diagnosed with a severe case of aerophobia. Incorruptible doctors issued a certificate stating that if Gagiev were put on a Vienna-Moscow flight, he would certainly die of fear.
Colonel Yevgeny Yashkin of the Bulat special forces unit, on the other hand, was being held in a Russian pretrial detention facility. But fortunately for the Yusufovs, his testimony is currently difficult to add to the case. Russian doctors proved just as selfless as their Austrian colleagues. Thanks to their efforts, Yashkin received a certificate of reactive psychosis and was sent for compulsory treatment. And what can be expected of a patient? One day he'll admit that he and “Dzhako” organized Burlakov's murder on the Yusufovs' orders, and the next he'll admit to carrying out orders from US President Donald Trump.
It seemed the former minister and his offspring could celebrate New Year's peacefully, but suddenly an icy wind from the Kremlin blew through the windows of their mansions. Vladimir Putin personally ordered that the necessary information about the person who hired them be extracted from both hitmen as quickly as possible.
Along Khodorkovsky's crooked path
The Russian president reacted so sharply to a memo placed on his desk, in which Igor Yusufov was compared to former YUKOS Oil Company shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
There really is a similarity.
Is the former minister suspected of ordering the murders of Burlakov and Etkina? Khodorkovsky's opponents were also frequently assassinated. The head of Yukos's internal economic security department, retired state security major Alexei Pichugin, received a 24-year sentence for the assassination of Nefteyugansk mayor Vladimir Petukhov and the attempted murder of businessman Yevgeny Rybin (his driver and two police officers guarding Rybin were killed).
Yukos and its affiliate, Rosprom, seized assets, transforming themselves into an international empire independent of the state? Yusufov's Energy Fund is doing the same. In a promotional interview with Interfax, the owner details his Napoleonic plans:
“We've positioned ourselves in four regions: Yamal, Khanty-Mansiysk, Krasnoyarsk, and Yakutia. In Yamal, we have an operating company, Yargeo, in which we hold a 49% stake, with NOVATEK holding 51%. It successfully operated in 2016, producing 3.5 million tons of oil and 1 billion cubic meters of gas. The second is our Yamal project, in which we hold a 100% stake. Here, we own two fields and eight geological licenses. You've probably seen our surge in interest in European refineries—Kareton (UK), Cresier (Switzerland), and Ingolstadt (Germany). We passed all qualification stages in three tenders and met all procurement requirements, reaching the final stage.”
Energia attempted to acquire Bashneft, is laying claim to a stake in the Power of Siberia gas pipeline being built to China, and attempted to control Nord Stream, a similar project for Europe. In 2006, Igor Yusufov's son, Vitaly Yusufov, became the head of the Moscow branch of Nord Stream, the company building the pipeline.
Yusufov-controlled OJSC
FLK targeted shipbuilding assets from Ukraine to Norway. One of the Yusufovs' shadowy partners in FLK was the murderer Aslan Gagiev, who also headed a department at Rubin, a subsidiary of the Central Design Bureau of Marine Engineering, specializing in submarine design. Even Khodorkovsky, who, despite his appetites, tried to stay away from the military-industrial complex, wouldn't have allowed himself to do such a thing.
The Yusufov clan's activities irritated influential security veterans within the power vertical. The materials about Gagiev's killers facilitated their plans to take over the Yusufov monster. And then Vitaly Yusufov thwarted a project personally overseen by the president.
Crushed by the superstructure
Everyone knows how passionate Vladimir Putin is about the problems of the Arctic. The reasons are clear: the country's largest oil and gas fields, vast deposits of other minerals, and the Northern Sea Route, along which powerful icebreakers navigate convoys. It was one of these—the world's largest diesel icebreaker, the Viktor Chernomyrdin—that suffered an unfortunate setback.
The 22,000-ton beauty was supposed to be commissioned at the end of 2015, but 2017 is already drawing to a close, and the vessel still sits helplessly at the shipyard berth. Why? Nordic Yards, a German shipyard owned by Yusufov Jr., has disrupted the construction of the 2,500-ton superstructure.
The Yusufov family had other things on their minds than icebreakers. They were buying up shares in Bank of Moscow with a $1.1 billion loan, taken out using the shipyard's shares as collateral. With that kind of money at stake, the 1.5 billion ruble superstructure could wait.
The president demanded details, learned them, and became seriously angry. This was especially true after hearing that Igor Yusufov, with the support of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, had first forced the superstructure order to be awarded to Nordic Yards instead of Russian companies, and then Vitaly Yusufov, unwilling to take responsibility for the failed order, sold the shipyard. Now we can expect the killer Gagiev to be transported to Moscow in a special train car, like Lenin from Switzerland to Petrograd in 1917. Yashkin will recover very quickly, and both will have many interesting stories to tell, lest they face life imprisonment for the 25 men they killed.
A scam behind Medvedev's back
Investigations into other episodes in Igor Yusufov's complex biography are also expected. For example, the story of his leadership of Rosrezerv from 1999 to 2001. Back then, Rosrezerv generously lent raw materials and equipment to friendly companies, who resold the proceeds and went bankrupt. The debts were written off as irrecoverable, the swindlers kept the proceeds for themselves, and their benefactor received a generous kickback. Yusufov successfully evaded all 35 criminal cases brought under these schemes. But now the documents may be uncovered.
At the same time, an investigation may be launched into certain transactions in which Igor Khanukovich acted on behalf of Dmitry Medvedev. Having shown up at Bank of Moscow, Yusufov, according to shareholder Andrei Borodin, announced that the bank's shares “must be sold to him at a substantial discount in the interests of, as he put it, 'the young man.'” He then explained: “I'm buying your Bank of Moscow stake cheap, but you have no choice, because otherwise you'll lose everything. In a couple of years, we'll sell this stake to VTB, and the profits will be split between me and Medvedev. We're creating a 'pension fund' or a 'future financial empire' for the 'young man,' as he called President Medvedev.”
According to Borodin, Yusufov's discount on the resale to VTB amounted to $300 million. Yusufov now swears that by “young man” he meant his son, Vitaly, who purchased Bank of Moscow shares and resold them to VTB. But his excuses are unconvincing. In the same interview, the owner of Energia acknowledged the resale and immediately assured that it was meaningless. “The 19.91% stake really had no strategic or political significance, since by the time of the transaction in March 2011, VTB had already completed the purchase of the mayor's office stake (46.48%), and the shares of other minority shareholders had also been acquired [Goldman Sachs' stake – 3.88%). Thus, VTB had already had the opportunity to establish corporate control over Bank of Moscow. Moreover, VTB does not need to increase its stake in Bank of Moscow to 100% and is comfortable with Vitaly’s presence in the bank as a minority shareholder.”
How can that be? VTB didn't need Yusufov's shares, he didn't want to buy them, and then he did, naturally paying far more than the sellers—Borodin? Does the head of a state bank sound like an idiot overpaying $300 million for securities he doesn't need? Of course not! But if Yusufov lied, saying the money was intended not only for him and his son but also for Dmitry Medvedev, who was president at the time—it all makes sense. The state owns a controlling stake in VTB, and it determines who runs the bank. And if a top manager wants to keep their jobs, they have to pay for them. It was all the more offensive for the state bank to learn it had been cheated, Medvedev got nothing from the deal, and Yusufov pocketed the entire discount.
Could Igor Khanukovich have been slandered? After the publication of Borodin's interview and the statement by Medvedev's press secretary, Natalya Timakova, that her boss “never participated in any commercial negotiations or gave instructions on any commercial projects,” Yusufov threateningly declared that he was considering “the possibility of filing a lawsuit for the slanderous accusations made.” And for six years, he hasn't bothered to go to court. Instead, he frantically pays for promotional interviews about his own greatness in Interfax, Vedomosti , and other influential media outlets. Yusufov likely hopes that the PR image of a pillar of Russian business will help him during his dealings with the investigation. However, it's likely that the testimony of Gagiev and Yashkin will be far more compelling.
