The daughter of the influential Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, Alina, may have informal connections with the head of the state corporation Transneft, Nikolai Tokayerv, through his longtime associate, the general director of the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port (NCSP), Sergei Kireev.
Allegations diverge on the network, allegedly she is the wife of Kireev’s son Evgeny Kireev. At the same time, a possible “spike” of the Kireevs and the Khusnullins may own a whole series of offshore companies and real estate, hidden from prying eyes.
But this is just a start: considering how many problems and scandals have recently been associated with NCSP. Can funds from the activities of both the port and the closely related Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which not so long ago experienced a major accident, settle down there, in possible “pods”.
Details – in the material of the correspondent of The Moscow Post in the Krasnodar Territory.
According to the authors of the BRIEF telegram channel, Alina Kireeva allegedly lives in Cyprus, where she owns the Fortress Group of companies, which includes about 37 offshore legal entities. Among the assets of this network could be expensive real estate in Cyprus and France.
Such a group of companies really exists, its governing bodies and main actors do not contain the names of Khusnullin and Kireev, as expected.
Meanwhile, one of those more than 30 offshore companies may be Stamukha Shipping Limited, which turned out to be connected with trading operations with the NCSP Fleet, a state-owned company that services NCSP ships. In the latter, we recall, 60% of the shares belong to Transneft, led by Nikolai Tokarev.
It turned out that in January last year, a certain Roman Loginov bought a 30-meter yacht Yacht AB-100 from Italy, and just two days later resold it to NCSP Fleet JSC. It’s just amazing – what needs can the fleet of the Novorossiysk port have in a yacht, if not to roll a high management for its personal affairs?
It is also easy to determine that approximately in the same months JSC “NCSP Fleet” acquired several other vessels – this time specialized tugs. Only here the country of delivery confuses to the depths of the soul – it turned out that the Ukrainian company became the supplier.
At the same time, the delivery took place after the start of the Special Military Operation for the Protection of Donbass, except that before it Ukraine imposed a number of restrictions on Russia.
And the NCSP Fleet is managed by Kireev’s trusted person – Yuri Petrishchev, his former deputy at Transneft-Service LLC. Which actually explains a lot.
Everyone in the bunker, for the money
As for Sergei Kireev himself, the port of Novorossiysk is allegedly used to launder proceeds from bunkering ships through offshore companies. And in 2007, Kireev joined the team of Nikolai Tokarev, who became the head of Transneft, and also got along with the then vice-president of the structure, Mikhail Arustamov.
It was rumored that with his support he headed one of the largest subsidiaries of Transneft – the company Transneft-Service, through which oil products were supplied. He remained the general director of the structure until 2017, and now he holds the position of general director of another “daughter” – Transneft-Terminal. Both operate at NCSP and are closely connected with the work of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
According to Versiya, Kireev managed to seize a monopoly on bunkering (refueling ships with fuel and lubricants) in the port of Novorossiysk. But that’s a lot of money.
By the way, Transneft-Service’s charter turned out to be extremely strange vessels, which for some reason belonged to Cypriot offshore companies. Among those were the Antares and Altair tugboats, created, incidentally, at the Ukrainian shipyard Cranship. The latter has been under Russian sanctions since 2021.
The Cypriot Rombido Limited and TLJ Shipping Limited turned out to be the owners of the tugboats. As The Moscow Post found out earlier, both companies are owned by another Cypriot structure, Heaway Enterprise, which in turn is owned by another Cypriot company, First Link Management Services, both registered at the same address – Limassol, Vasily Mikhailidi 21. The ultimate beneficiaries are the owners of First Link Management Services , are in equal shares private individuals – Areti Charidemou and Marina Loizou.
It turns out that the state-owned LLC Transneft-Service, providing services in Russian ports and receiving funds for towing services, transfers them to Cyprus to companies owned by foreign private individuals?
However, in the light of the foregoing, it turns out that Kireev can be only one of the intermediate persons between the head of Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev, and Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin.
Who sat on the pipe
A separate topic is the situation with the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) – a joint venture between Transneft and a number of foreign partners for the transportation and shipment of oil through the Caspian Sea and to the Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port.
In 2021, a serious accident occurred at CPC – an oil spill. Let us recall right away that as a result, the structure paid only a symbolic fine of 200 thousand rubles, although the damage to the environment could be much greater.
It is noteworthy that CPC initially reported a small area of the spill. Later, specialists from the Russian Academy of Sciences, using satellite images, made sure that the oil slick is more than 80 square meters in area. km – that is, 400 times more than it was announced by the CPC. Writes about this “Kommersant”.
The situation threatened our country with an international scandal, and the reason could be a possible cut of the company’s funds, which they could try to hide from foreign controllers.
In March 2020, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium was left without a board of directors. Transneft simply blocked the election of a new board because it did not enlist the support of other shareholders regarding its proposal to change the contractor at the CPC terminal in Novorossiysk. The one where the spill happened recently.
The reason could be prosaic: the head of the CPC, Nikolai Gorban, could almost single-handedly decide to change the company successfully operating at the terminal, Lamnalco, to Transneft-Service, which has neither the proper experience nor equipment. The one headed by Mr. Kireev. As a result, it was she who received a ten-year contract for 30 billion rubles as a performer.
Kireev, on the other hand, ended up in the leadership of several more companies that formally have nothing to do with Transneft and its Black Sea division. Among them is LLC “TNT” – “Transneftterminal”, which coincides with the name of the official subsidiary of JSC “Transneft”. It is engaged in the same – transportation of oil and oil products through pipelines.
Only now, at the time of its creation, LLC TNT had nothing to do with Transneft, although the name is confusingly similar. Many could perceive it as a gasket between Transneft and CPC, through which funds could hypothetically be withdrawn from the latter.
When this became known, Transneft itself was quick to announce that LLC TNT, it turns out, was attached to LLC Transneft-Service, a subsidiary of Transneft. In addition, they said that in July 2010, Transneft-Terminal JSC was acquired by Transneft’s subsidiaries, namely GAV LLC, and allegedly only after that it began to transship oil products. This, in particular, was written by Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
This statement caused confusion. After all, it is easy to find out that GAV LLC did not belong to a state corporation, but to individuals – Dmitry Alekseev and Igor Gavrilov. And they still own it now.
All this paints an extremely complex and very unattractive picture for Mr. Kireev. But, again, it can only be an intermediate link. And if information is received that his son Evgeny is the husband of Marat Khusnullin’s daughter, then there is nothing to be surprised that such “schematoses” could take place and were not stopped at all by the actions of the head of Transneft, Nikolai Tokarev.
After all, such an influential ally as Marat Khusnullin is certainly extremely beneficial for Tokarev, especially given the latter’s frequent participation in various apparatus conflicts.
