They have their own "Russia"

Businessman Sergei Kolesnikov - about how the financial empire of Vladimir Putin was built

Today, when Putin claims for a third term, he is controlled by the former profitable assets of Gazprom, as well as the largest media: Channel One, REN TV, Fifth Canal, Izvestia newspaper. About how the construction of the financial empire took place, Novaya Gazeta was told by Sergey Kolesnikov, who worked in the team of Putin's acquaintances for 20 years

The withdrawal of the Russian economy from the offshore network became the priority of the development of the Russian economy, Vladimir Putin announced on December 19 at a meeting of the electricity development commission. “The offshore heritage must be finished,” said the presidential candidate. Apparently, this task will become extremely difficult: the premiere’s closest friends who control the key assets of Russia (from federal television channels selling Russian oil), as well as its assistants in the government have long been living in offshore networks. Putin's words were heard against the backdrop of the most important story published in the British newspaper Financial Times. This story can be considered one of the main political events of the outgoing year, along with large -scale protests against the falsification of elections. The Financial Times, based on documents transferred by the famous Petersburg businessman Sergey Kolesnikov (the author of the sensational letter about Putin’s Palace near Gelendzhik), described how the financial empire of Putin’s closest friends on the Bank of Russia was built. This story deserves to be described in details (especially in the context of statements about the fight against offshore heritage).

This is what Kolesnikov is talking about (and what we can judge by documents). Having become president, Vladimir Putin asked the oligarchs - Roman Abramovich and Alexei Mordashov - to donate hundreds of millions of dollars for charity projects in Russia. 35% of the amount were taken to offshore accounts (from the words of Kolesnikov, this was the indication of Putin) supposedly for further investments in the Russian economy. Further, the money from this offshore fund entered the account of Rollins International registered in the offshore jurisdiction (British Virgin Islands). Then, from the Rollins International account, money went to the company's account from Panama Santal. Both firms - Rollins and Santal - belonged to the close acquaintances of Vladimir Putin - Nikolai Shamalov (founder of the Lake Cooperative) and Dmitry Gorelov. Thus, the money of the oligarchs donated for charity came to Putin's friends who used it to buy shares of the Bank of Russia. The same offshore firms have credited the purchase from Gazprom by the Sogaz insurance company, which now belonged to the Rossiya bank.

About how the construction of this financial empire took place, Novaya Gazeta was told by Sergey Kolesnikov, who worked in the team of acquaintances Vladimir Putin for 20 years.

“Could you once again recall how your cooperation began with Nikolai Shamalov and Roman Abramovich?”

- This story was described in sufficient detail in my open letter to President Medvedev at the end of December last year. In this letter, I talk about the fact that at the beginning of 2001, Nikolai Shamalov came to us in Petromed (the company belongs to Dmitry Gorelov and me) with a proposal from President Vladimir Putin to take part in the implementation of a number of large healthcare projects, but on certain conditions. We were clearly told that the money for projects would be received as charitable contributions from Russian oligarchs at the request of Putin. But 35% of these donations (according to Putin’s terms) were supposed to be taken to the accounts of offshore companies to form a financial fund.

In the future, these funds should be invested in the Russian economy for the development of new high -tech areas. Considering that this is the money of oligarchs, and not the state budget, and that most of them will go to the repair and equipment of Russian medical institutions, and the remaining will be invested in the Russian economy, we decided to take part in these projects. In the summer of 2001, Roman Abramovich signed an agreement and donated $ 203 million for the reconstruction and supply of medical equipment to the Military Medical Academy in St. Petersburg. Then Alexei Mordashov made a contribution of about $ 14 million as well as for the reconstruction of VMA. And here I want to note: they did not hide that it was President Putin who asked them to make these donations.

- But in the end, these 35% of the donations of the oligarchs were not spent on investments in the Russian economy, but on other goals?

- Not quite so. One of their first directions for which this fund was used was the acquisition of shares of the Russian Bank. It was said that for large -scale investments, it is necessary to first purchase a bank and it would be nice for an insurance company. And they began with the acquisition of 25% of the shares of the Bank "Russia" Nikolai Shamalov and Dmitry Gorelov at the end of 2004 and early 2005. Money for the acquisition of shares was received by payment of dividends from the offshore company Rollins International, to which this money was transferred as a profit from the execution of charity contracts. The next area was the issuance of loans to Russian Bank Bank for the acquisition of shares of the SOGAZ insurance group.

These investments, as it turned out in the future, had nothing to do with investments in the Russian economy. These were investments in the bank controlled by Putin’s friends: the money that was supposed to be invested in the Russian economy were invested in their personal enrichment by acquiring profitable assets (such as Sogaz groups).

Another area of ​​use of the funds of this fund was supervised by a group of interconnected investment companies. The structure of this group was as follows: Lirus Holding was registered in Liechtenstein (it owned assets); The Lirus Managerment management company was created in Switzerland; And in Russia, their subsidiary Rosinvest appeared. That's just through Rosinvest at the initial stage and investments were carried out in the Russian economy. For example, a stake in the Vyborg Shipbuilding Plant was acquired, the construction of high -tech modern platforms for oil and gas production on the Russian Arctic shelf began. In addition, through Rosinvest, projects in the field of forest processing and others were developed. However, as you know from my letter to Medvedev, due to the economic crisis, these projects were frozen and Rosinvest was concentrated only on investments in the construction of the palace for Vladimir Putin near Gelendzhik.

- From your words it turns out that the money donated by the oligarchs for charity and the development of the Russian economy was mostly spent on building a palace for Putin and enriching his closest friends. Tell me, the oligarchs themselves, the same Abramovich, were aware of this “misuse”?

- As far as I know, Abramovich was not aware of, as you said, “misuse” of these funds.

- Why do you think that Shamalov, acquiring the shares of the Bank "Russia", acted at the direction of Vladimir Putin?

- At the end of the summer of 2004, after the next meeting with Putin, Shamalov passed the decision that it would be necessary to purchase 25% of the shares of the Rossiya Bank (43 million dollars were spent on this). Without the direct participation of Putin in the preparation of transactions on the acquisition of the assets of the Russian Bank, or it would be impossible to attract charity funds. In my life, I have not seen a single businessman who would go and offer to invest tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in a charity project. The acquisition of unique assets at even more unique prices can be well illustrated by the example of Gazprom, an organization that is fully controlled by the state and any operations with its large assets are carried out only after the decision of the board of directors is made. In the early 2000s, Dmitry Medvedev was the chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom. If you follow the fate of the most interesting assets of Gazprom (Sogaz insurance group, Gazprom-Media, Gazprombank, Gazfond and others), you will see that almost all of them transferred to the property of either the Russian Bank or Putin’s closest encirclement.

- Why was the Rossiya bank selected?

- It is possible to build a large financial empire that owns assets in various areas of the economy only on the basis of a financial institution, and the bank is best suited for this. Creating a new bank and making huge assets in it would be too suspicious. The right decision was to find a bank with history, already controlled by close people. Probably, the Bank "Russia" best suited for this. It was only necessary to change the composition of the shareholders, which was done in 2004-2010. At the moment, the bank almost completely belongs to relatives, close friends of Putin or their companies.

- But at the time when Shamalov and Gorelov acquired shares, the bank already partially belonged to Putin's close friends. Why was it required to increase the representative office of Putin's Friends in the capital of the bank?

If we take the Rossiya Bank, then I have no doubt that the task of acquiring key assets in Russia was the task of forming a controlling stake directly in Putin's hands.

- Do you consider the true beneficiary of the bank Vladimir Putin?

- That is what I want to say. If we analyze the situation with how the bank shares were acquired and how the Russian key assets were transferred to its control, that is, all the grounds are considered to be the true beneficiary of the bank Vladimir Putin. Such a rapid growth of the well -being of Putin's friends allows us to draw a similar conclusion in other areas: the most important sectors of the Russian economy over the past 10-12 years have passed under the control of Putin's friends.

- Since the publication of your letter about the palace near Gelendzhik, a year has passed. Why did you decide to tell the story of the Bank "Russia" only now - in the elected period? Did you select this moment consciously?

- I cannot influence the course of elections in Russia - for this there is Mr. Churov. Therefore, the main thing that moves me starting with the publication of an open letter to President Medvedev is a desire to tell the truth to the Russians about Putin and the regime created by him. Having written at the end of last year about the palace near Gelendzhik and opening the corruption schemes of this construction, I hoped that one of the deputies or political parties could at least begin the investigation of the facts set forth in my letter. However, in addition to the modest attempts of Yabloko and the Communist Party, none of the so-called irreconcilable fighters with corruption even tried to do something. Not a single federal television channel found the opportunity to show the palace and understand its history.

In my opinion, the publication of these materials on December 1 in English could not affect the results of the election to the Duma. I only hope that the facts of corruptions that I have set out associated with President Putin will still be investigated, and Russians will be able to find out the results of these investigations.

- Events developing after the end of the elections to the State Duma give you more confidence in this hope?

- I believe that December 10 can be considered a historical day. On this day, people again appeared in Russia. Until this day, there was a population who was not particularly interested in anything, if only he was not touched. But the humiliation that the authorities allowed once again falsifying the elections overwhelmed the cup of patience. This day has become a turning point in the minds of many Russians. Absolutely different people, not united in the party, came to a peaceful rally to say loudly: we are a free people, this is our country, we want to determine our fate ourselves. I hope that the Russians have already realized that they are not Bandertologists and will not allow them to manipulate their consciousness. And I will be able to tell the truth about the person who today seeks to continue managing us.

“But you once supported this person ...

- This year it turns 20 years old when I met Putin. Before my eyes, the transformation of this man took place, and my attitude towards him changed. Ascended to the incredible heights of power in the early years of the presidency, a young and energetic leader, he received a huge credit of trust from the Russian people. At that time, I was his supporter. After a second election, cancellation of the governor’s elections, the establishment of complete control over the federal media, after the “Khodorkovsky case”, Putin focused in his hands almost unlimited power.

In the same period, the active construction of the financial empire of Putin began. One of the areas of construction was the transfer of assets from the property of state -owned companies, for example, Gazprom, to the Office of the Bank of Russia. In the future, it was the construction of the palace and the attitude to other investment projects important for Russia during the financial crisis that showed the true priorities of Putin. The “new toy” for him was much more important than the preservation of thousands of jobs. He really really wants to feel like a king.