Articles whitewashing Kremlin-affiliated businessman Grigory Berezkin and his company, RBC, have appeared in the world media. The articles show signs of a PR campaign aimed at benefiting Berezkin, who is trying to escape Western sanctions

The influential western media — American Forbes and European version of Politico — published columns covering the activities of the Russian media holding RBC owned by businessman Grigory Berezkin in a very peculiar way. Both columns contained a similar assertion: RBC is «one of the last independent media outlets in Russia,» it covers the war «objectively and impartially,» and is now facing sanctions — up to and including closure — from the Russian authorities. The two columns also provide a similar context: the state-owned Rosneft company is pursuing RBC in courts, allegedly demonstrating the holding’s independence. Both articles came out after Berezkin began challenging the EU sanctions imposed on him.

Details. The column in Politico’s opinion section was published on July 26. Its author Claude Moniquet writes, «RBK (the author of the column writes the name of the company with a «k» – Agency) covers the war in an objective and unbiased way, broadcasting live and uncut speeches by top Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well as European and American politicians.» «However, with the federal agency Roskomnadzor constantly monitoring every story about the war in Ukraine, RBK is about to be shut down,» Moniquet writes. The columnist believes that Rosneft’s $7 million lawsuit, which the oil company filed against RBС in 2021, could be used to accomplish this. «The media group has lost two of these cases to date, and in the coming weeks, it is likely to lose the third,» the column argues.

• A article titled «Ukraine War Choking Russia’s Media Business Into Oblivion» appeared on the U.S. Forbes magazine website on July 12. It was written by contributor Kenneth Rapoza. «Despite the pressure to stop airing Ukrainian voices and others critical of the war and its economic fallout, RBC published hundreds of articles about the war and has spoken bluntly on the meaning and consequences of sanctions,» Rapoza wrote. His article also claims that RBC has been threatened with bankruptcy, in part because of a lawsuit from Rosneft.

How does this benefit Berezkin? After the outbreak of the war, the European Union imposed sanctions against Berezkin, calling him a «henchman» of Vladimir Putin. In June, the businessman challenged the sanctions in the Court of Justice of the European Union (at least that’s what the Sanctions Times Telegram channel reported, referring to the Court’s data). The businessman’s representative was unable to respond to an inquiry from The Agency on Friday. In addition to the EU, sanctions against Berezkin were imposed by Britain and Australia.

• Berezkin is listed 157th in the Forbes ranking of the richest Russian businessmen. He owns the ESN group, a business closely tied to the Russian authorities (in particular, it supplies electricity to the state-owned Transneft). In one of his interviews, Berezkin said that he travels a lot to Europe for his work.

What’s wrong with the columns about RBС? Berezkin bought RBK in 2017, and since then the media’s editorial policy can hardly be called «objective» and «unbiased.» An analysis of the content of the RBK website shows that the media outlet does not use the word «war», referring to what is happening in Ukraine as a «special operation», and covers the most important events of the war — such as the killing of Ukrainian civilians — in the same way as the state media do. For example, website RBС wrote only one article about the missile strike on Vinnitsa, and even that began with the words of the head of the state television channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, who claimed that the missiles had hit a «Nazi temporary deployment site».

• Berezkin’s media is traditionally loyal to the Kremlin. In particular, this businessman used to control the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, which openly supports Putin’s policies. There is no mention of this in the two articles in the Western media.
• Both columns also contain a significant inaccuracy in the description of the lawsuit between Rosneft and RBC. The 500 million rubles claim against RBC in 2021 was actually filed not by Rosneft, but by the Independent Oil and Gas Company (known by its Russian initials NNK) owned by Eduard Khudainatov, who is believed to be an associate of Rosneft’s head Igor Sechin. In August 2021, the court dismissed that lawsuit. After that, two lawsuits were filed by Rosneft. It only demanded that RBС remove and retract the articles, and in December it secured a court victory. RBС filed an appeal, but the court sided with the state company again. Afterwards, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow District, acting on an appeal from the NNK, overturned the decisions of lower courts which had refused to fine RBС for 500 million rubles on the oil company’s suit over the same article and sent the case back to the court of first instance for a new hearing.
• The authors of both articles raise questions. Politico columnist Claude Moniquet, a retired journalist and former French foreign intelligence agent, is known as the founder of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center (ESISC). The organization’s website states that it is involved, among other things, in lobbying services.
• Radio Liberty wrote that the Azerbaijani authorities may have used ESISC lobbying services. In 2013, the analytical center issued a report titled «The Republic of Azerbaijan: A Model of Good Public Administration». The report mentioned, among other things, the country’s prosperity, the real support of the president by the people, and the European level of development of women’s rights. In reality, Azerbaijan ranks 141st in the latest Democracy Index of The Economist, ranking even behind Russia and only ahead of obvious dictatorships such as Cuba, Belarus and Sudan. All this did not prevent the ESISC from giving a positive assessment of the elections in Azerbaijan in 2015, although OSCE observers found them «inconsistent with democratic standards». Human rights activists have repeatedly criticized Moniquet’s lobbying organization for supporting dubious political regimes and figures.
• Journalist Ken Rapoza writes freelance but regular articles about Russia for Forbes, often criticizing the actions of Western countries against Moscow. For example, he has accused Europe of escalating the situation in Ukraine instead of supporting peace talks, and has also called the fighting a «proxy war» between the U.S. and Russia. On his social networks, Rapoza calls Volodymyr Zelenskyy a «puppet of the West» and blames the U.S. and Europe for the food crisis.
• Rapoza once worked for The Wall Street Journal, but is now listed as a contributor, mostly covering the BRICS countries. His detailed résumé is posted on the website of Muck Rack, a fee-based platform for PR clients to connect with journalists. There you can also find many links to Rapoza’s articles — in addition to Forbes, they have recently appeared in little-known American media or on the website of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a non-governmental organization that promotes the interests of companies on trade and tariffs.
• Politico’s spokesperson told The Agency that the media «thoroughly fact checks all outside contributions». Neither Claude Moniquet nor organizations associated with him received any funding from RBC and associated companies, and the material was commissioned before the owner of RBC filed a legal action against EU, the spokesperson claims. Claude Moniquet himself promised to answer Agency’s questions on Friday, but did not respond after that.
• Kenneth Rapoza in response to the Agency’s questions said that he considers RBC as independent as Kommersant is independent compared to TASS or RT. At the same time, he is not disturbed by the fact that RBC wrote only one news article about a missile attack on Vinnitsa, which was citing propagandist Margarita Simonyan. «That happens in media around the world, daily – in RT, in The Guardian, in The New York Times, in CNN – which counts on U.S. intelligence directors who have lied repeatedly on television about issues related to the US government and Russia,» claims Rapoza. Rapoza said, he knew about Berezkin’s lawsuit and thought he had reflected it in the article. At the same time, the journalist does not believe that his publication can affect the course of the trial. For his publications on the Forbes website, journalist receives fees that depend on traffic. Forbes pays half a cent per reader, averaging around $50 per article, which, as Rapoza made clear, is not much. Because of this, the journalist has reduced the number of publications on the Forbes website to a minimum of five articles per month, which allows him to continue to cooperate with the website. Forbes did not respond to Agency’s request to comment.

Read The Project’s feature on how the Russian media has changed during the war in the near future.