Russian oligarchs (Russian: олигархи, tr. oligarkhi) are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials (mostly in Russia and Ukraine) as a means to acquire state property.
The Russian oligarchs emerged as business entrepreneurs under Mikhail Gorbachev (General Secretary, 1985–1991) during his period of market liberalization.[1] Boris Berezovsky, a mathematician and formerly a researcher, became the first well-known Russian business oligarch.
Oligarchs became increasingly influential in Russian politics during Boris Yeltsin's presidency (1991–1999); they helped finance his re-election in 1996. Well-connected oligarchs like Roman Abramovich, Michail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Potanin acquired key assets at a fraction of the value at the loans for shares scheme auctions conducted in the run-up to the election.[2] Defenders of the out-of-favor oligarchs argue that the companies they acquired were not highly valued at the time because they still ran on Soviet principles, with non-existent stock control, huge payrolls, no financial reporting and scant regard for profit.[3]
Since 2014, hundreds of Russian oligarchs and their companies have been hit by the US sanctions for their support of "the Russian government's malign activity around the globe".[4][5] In 2022, many Russian oligarchs and their close family members were targeted and sanctioned by countries around the world as a rebuke of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Yeltsin era, 1991–1999
During Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika (c. 1985–1991), many businessmen in Russia imported goods such as personal computers and jeans into the country and sold them for a hefty profit.
Once Boris Yeltsin became President of Russia in July 1991, the oligarchs emerged as well-connected entrepreneurs who started from nearly nothing and became rich through participation in the market via connections to the corrupt, but elected, government of Russia during the state's transition to a market-based economy. The so-called voucher privatization program of 1992–1994 enabled a handful of young men to become billionaires, specifically by arbitraging the vast difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities (such as natural gas and oil) and the prices prevailing on the world market. These oligarchs became unpopular with the Russian public and are often blamed for the turmoil that plagued the Russian Federation following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.[6][7][8][9]
Emergence
Economists Sergei Guriev and Andrei Rachinsky contrast older oligarchs with nomenklatura ties and younger-generation entrepreneurs such as Kakha Bendukidze who built their wealth from scratch because Gorbachev's reforms affected a period "when co-existence of regulated and quasi-market prices created huge opportunities for arbitrage."[10]
The majority of oligarchs were promoted (at least initially) by the Soviet apparatchiks, with strong connections to Soviet power-structures and access to the funds of the Communist Party.[3][11][12] Boris Berezovsky himself was Head of the Department of System Design at another Academy of Sciences research centre. His private company was established by the Institute as a joint venture.[13] Mikhail Khodorkovsky started his business importing computers under auspices of the Komsomol-authorised Center for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth in 1986, briefly serving as a deputy secretary of the Komsomol for a district in Moscow in 1987. His move into banking two years later was funded with the support of Komsomol alumni working in Moscow city government. Later, he served in the Russian government as an adviser to the prime minister and a deputy minister of fuel and power while still running his business.[14] Vladimir Vinogradov was the chief economist of Promstroibank, one of the six banks existing in the Soviet Union,[15] previously serving as the secretary of Atommash plant Komsomol organisation.[14]
Political support
Economist Yegor Gaidar worked in a Soviet Academy of Sciences think tank modelled after RAND.[16] Gaidar later became the economics editor of the Kommunist journal, the official theoretical organ of the CC of the CPSU. He also held various positions, including Prime Minister in the Russian government during 1991–1992.[17] Together with Anatoly Chubais, the two "Young Reformers" were chiefly responsible for privatization in the early 1990s.[18][19][20] According to David Satter, "what drove the process was not the determination to create a system based on universal values but rather the will to introduce a system of private ownership, which, in the absence of law, opened the way for the criminal pursuit of money and power".[21][3]
The 1998 Russian financial crisis hit most oligarchs hard and those whose holdings were based mainly in banking lost much of their fortunes. The most influential oligarchs from the Yeltsin era include[6] Roman Abramovich, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Potanin, Alexander Smolensky and Vladimir Vinogradov.[3] They formed what became known as the Semibankirschina (or "seven-banker outfit", ), a group of businessmen with a great influence on Boris Yeltsin and his political environment. Together they controlled from 50% to 70% of all Russian finances between 1996 and 2000. Historian Edward L. Keenan has compared these oligarchs to the system of powerful boyars that emerged in late-medieval Muscovy.[22] The Guardian reported in 2008 that "'oligarchs' from the era of former president Boris Yeltsin have been purged by the Kremlin".[23]
Putin era, 1999–2022 (prior to the invasion of Ukraine)
With the ascent of Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin the influence of the Yeltsin oligarchs dissipated, as some were imprisoned, such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky (pictured here) and Mikhael Mirilashvili, while others emigrated, sold off their assets or died under suspicious circumstances, such as Vladimir Vinogradov and Boris Berezovsky. A number of Yeltsin oligarchs first came under fire for alleged tax evasion.[24][25] Vladimir Gusinsky of MediaMost and Boris Berezovsky both avoided legal proceedings by leaving Russia, and the most prominent, Mikhail Khodorkovsky of Yukos oil, was arrested in October 2003 and sentenced to 9 years. This was subsequently extended to 14 years, and after Putin pardoned him, he was released on 20 December 2013.[26]
A second wave of oligarchs emerged in the 2000s, friends and former colleagues of President Putin either from his years in the St Petersburg municipal administration or his Dresden tenure in the KGB.[27] Examples are the director of the institute where Putin obtained a degree in 1996, Vladimir Litvinenko,[28] and Putin's childhood friend and judo-teacher Arkady Rotenberg.[29] Gennady Timchenko was close friends with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since the early 1980s.[30][31] In 1991, Putin gave Timchenko an oil export license.[10] These oligarchs worked in close cooperaton with the government, displacing a system of crony capitalism with a system of state capitalism whereby the new oligarchs benefited from financing by state-owned banks and access to public procurement projects.[32]
An economic study distinguished 21 oligarchic groups as of 2003.[10] Between 2000 and 2004, Putin apparently engaged in a power struggle with some oligarchs, reaching a "grand bargain" with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain their powers, in exchange for their explicit support of – and alignment with – Putin's government.[33][34] However, other analysts argue that the oligarchic structure has remained intact under Putin, with Putin devoting much of his time to mediating power-disputes between rival oligarchs.[35]
Prominent Putin-era oligarchs
The ten most-prominent oligarchs of the early Putin era included Roman Abramovich, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Prokhorov, Alisher Usmanov, Viktor Vekselberg, Leonid Mikhelson, Arkady Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko, Andrey Guryev and Vitaly Malkin.[36] In 2004, five years after Putin's ascend to power, Forbes listed 36 billionaires of Russian citizenship, with a note: "this list includes businessmen of Russian citizenship who acquired the major share of their wealth privately, while not holding a governmental position". In 2005, the number of billionaires dropped to 30, mostly because of the Yukos case, with Khodorkovsky dropping from No. 1 (US$15.2 billion) to No. 21 (US$2.0 billion). A 2013 report by Credit Suisse found that 35% of the wealth of Russia was owned by the wealthiest 110 individuals.[37][32]
Daniel Treisman proposed using a term "silovarch" (silovik and oligarch) for a new class of Russian oligarchs with backgrounds in Russian military and intelligence.[38] Billionaire and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev has criticized these new oligarchs, saying "I think material wealth for them is a highly emotional and spiritual thing. They spend a lot of money on their own personal consumption." Lebedev has also described them as "a bunch of uncultured ignoramuses", saying "They don't read books. They don't have time. They don't go to [art] exhibitions. They think the only way to impress anyone is to buy a yacht."[39]
On 30 January 2018, the U.S. Treasury published a "list of oligarchs" as part of a document known as the "Putin list" which was compiled under the requirement of the CAATSA Act.[40][41] According to the document itself, its criterion for inclusion was simply being a Russian national with a net worth of over $1 billion.[42] The list was criticised for being indiscriminate, and including critics of Putin.[43]
2008 global recession and credit crisis
According to the financial news-agency Bloomberg L.P., Russia's wealthiest 25 individuals have collectively lost US$230 billion (£146 billion) since July 2008.[44][45][46] The fall in the oligarchs' wealth relates closely to the meltdown in Russia's stock market, as by 2008 the RTS Index had lost 71% of its value due to the capital flight after the Russo-Georgian War of August 2008.[47]
Billionaires in Russia were particularly hard-hit by lenders seeking repayment on balloon loans to shore up their own balance sheets. Many oligarchs took out generous loans from Russian banks, bought shares, and then took out more loans from western banks against the value of these shares.[39][48] One of the first to get hit by the global downturn was Oleg Deripaska, Russia's richest man at the time, who had a net worth of US$28 billion in March 2008. As Deripaska borrowed money from western banks using shares in his companies as collateral, the collapse in share price forced him to sell holdings to satisfy the margin calls.[39][48]
Putin era, 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Western sanctions
After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Canada, US, and European leaders with the addition of Japan, took unprecedented steps to sanction Putin and the oligarchs directly.[49] In response to the sanctions, the targeted oligarchs started to hide wealth in an attempt to prevent the Western nations from freezing their assets.[50] These sanctions intend to directly impact the Russian ruling class as a response for their perceived contribution and acquiescence to the war with Ukraine. Although the sanctions miss some of the richest oligarchs, the impact on the war is unknown due to Putin's power over those that were sanctioned.[51] Since the invasion began, nine of the Russian oligarchs' yachts have turned their navigation transponders off as they sail to ports where they are less likely to be searched and seized.[49]
On March 2, 2022, the United States announced a special task force dubbed "Task Force KleptoCapture". This team was put together to specifically target oligarchs. It is made up of officials from the FBI, Marshals Service, IRS, Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations and Secret Service. The main goal of the task force is to impose the sanctions set against these individuals to freeze and seize the assets that the US government claimed were proceeds of their illegal involvement with the Russian government and the invasion of Ukraine.[52] On March 21, 2022, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project launched Russian Asset Tracker to showcase the profiles and assets of several Russian oligarchs.[53]
Several dozen business people with family connections to top politicians include President Putin’s younger daughter Katerina Tikhonova, who through her investment fund has been the recipient of numerous large contracts from state-owned energy companies.[54] Her former husband Kirill Shamalov runs the largest Russian petrochemicals company Sibur as well as his own investment fund.[55]
The son-in-law of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov runs an investment fund with assets exceeding $6 billion. Andrey Ryumin,[56] the son-in-law of Viktor Medvedchuk, President Putin’s former closest ally in Ukraine, runs another investment fund with large agricultural holdings which have become recipients of state subsidies for import substitution (Rouhandeh 2022). Petr Fradkov, the son of a former Prime Minister and head of the Russian foreign intelligence service, Sergei Sergeevich Ivanov, the son of the former head of the presidential administration Sergei Ivanov, and Andrey Patrushev, the son of the current head of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev have all joined the ranks of the oligarchs.[57]
The list of oligarchs and business executives who have risen to prominence and who have been sanctioned after Russia's invasion of Ukraine includes:
- Petr Fradkov (CEO of Promsvyazbank, son of Mikhail Fradkov, former Russian Prime Minister during 2004-2007. Mikhail Fradkov is the longest serving director of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service from 2007 to 2016.[58][59] Since 4 January 2017, Fradkov has been Director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies.[60])
- Andrey Guryev (the former head of PhosAgro, the world's fourth largest producer of phosphate-based fertilizers)[61]
- Mikhail Gutseriev (former owner of Russneft, one of Russia's largest oil companies)[62]
- Said Gutseriev (Russian-British businessperson, the son of Russian oligarch Mikhail Gutseriev. Since 2018 he has been included by Forbes into the list of wealthiest businessmen in the world. In 2021 his fortune has been estimated at $1.7 billion.[63][64]
- Katerina Tikhonova (President Putin's second daughter and deputy chair of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs)[65]
- Kirill Shamalov (director and part-owner of Sibur, a Russian petrochemicals company)[66]
- Andrey Valerievich Ryumin (Executive Director of Rosseti PJSC (formerly, until August 2014, known as Russian Grids, Chairman of Board, son-in-law of Viktor Medvedchuk. Medvedchuk is a pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politician and a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin.)[10][67][68][69]
- Andrey Patrushev (son of the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia Nikolai Patrushev. Nikolai Patrushev served as the director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) from 1999 to 2008. Belonging to the siloviki faction of president Vladimir Putin's inner circle,[70] Patrushev is believed to be one of the closest advisors to Putin and a leading figure behind Russia's national security affairs.[71] Patrushev is seen by some observers as one of the likeliest candidates for succeeding Putin.)[72][73]
- Sergei Sergeevich Ivanov (Board member of Gazprombank and president of Alrosa diamond mining; son of Sergei Ivanov, Minister of Defense of Russia from March 2001 to February 2007, Deputy Prime Minister from November 2005 to February 2007 and First Deputy Prime Minister from February 2007 to May 2008. After the election of Dmitry Medvedev as President of Russia, Ivanov was reappointed a Deputy Prime Minister (in office: 2008–2011) in Vladimir Putin's second cabinet. From December 2011 to August 2016, Ivanov worked as the Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office.[74] Having served in the Soviet KGB and in its successor, the Federal Security Service, Sergei Ivanov holds the rank of colonel general.)
- Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the paramilitary the Wagner Group. In June 2023, the Wagner Group launched a rebellion against the Russian military, seizing control of the port city of Rostov-on-Don.[75]
- Yury Slyusar (director of United Aircraft Corporation and board member of Aeroflot, Russian Airlines Pjsc and United Aircraft)
- Alexander Vinokurov (Owner of the privately held investment company Marathon Group (Russian company) and largest shareholder of retailer Magnit. Vinokurov is married to Ekaterina Vinokurova (née Lavrova) (born 1982 New York City), daughter of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov.[76] Vinokurov was added to the EU Sanctions List on 9 March 2022 for providing a substantial source of revenue to the government of the Russian Federation during the Russo-Ukrainian War.[77][78]
Russian oligarchs in London
The British Government policy encouraged the flow of foreign capital into the United Kingdom, for example through the foreign investor visa routes, introduced during John Major's premiership in 1994, one-fifth of whose recipients since 2008 are Russian citizens.[79] London is commonly associated with the terms "Londongrad" and "Moscow-on-Thames".[79]
A significant number of Russian oligarchs have bought homes in upmarket sections of London[80] in the United Kingdom, which has been dubbed "Moscow on Thames" or "Londongrad".[81] Some, such as Eugene Shvidler, Alexander Knaster, Konstantin Kagalovsky, David Wilkowske and Abram Reznikov, are expatriates, having taken permanent residency in London. Roman Abramovich bought 16 Kensington Palace Gardens in London, a 15-bedroom mansion, for £120 million.[82] Mikhail Fridman restored Athlone House in London as a primary residence in 2016.[83][84]
Roman Abramovich bought the English football club Chelsea F.C. in 2003, spending record amounts on players' salaries.[85] Alexander Mamut invested £100m to Waterstones bookstore chain after acquiring it in 2011 for £53m. According to its managing director James Daunt, the intervention saved Waterstones, which managed to make its first annual profit since 2008 in 2016.[86] He remarked that continued Russian ownership would've been "catastrophic" for the chain in 2022.[87]
See also
- Suspicious deaths of Russian businesspeople (2022–2023)
- Banking in Switzerland
- Corruption in Russia
- List of Russian billionaires
- Media mogul
- Oligarchy
- Political groups under Vladimir Putin's presidency
- Privatization in Russia
- Reputation laundering
- Robber baron (industrialist)
- Russian asset tracker
- Russian mafia
- Tycoon
- Ukrainian oligarchs
References
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Putin, able to see matters rather straighter than Yeltsin, realised two crucial things about the oligarchs: that they were potentially more powerful than him, and that they were about as popular with your average Russian as a man idly burning bundles of £50s outside an orphanage (according to one 2004 poll, only 18% of Russians opposed wholesale renationalisation of the country's resources).
- ↑ Granville, Johanna (Summer 2003). "The Russian Kleptocracy and Rise of Organized Crime". Demokratizatsiya: 448–457.
The Russian state has metamorphosed into a full-fledged 'kleptocracy' – dedicated to enriching those in power and their associates, usually organized criminal groups.
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... what drove the process was not the determination to create a system based on universal values but rather the will to introduce a system of private ownership, which, in the absence of law, opened the way for the criminal pursuit of money and power.
- ↑ Treisman, Daniel; Shleifer, Andrei (21 March 2004). "A Normal Country". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 25 January 2023.
- ↑ Parfitt, Tom (19 February 2008). "Billionaires boom as Putin puts oligarchs at No 2 in global rich list". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 February 2022.
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- 1 2 Djankov, Simeon (11 September 2015). "Russia's Economy under Putin: From Crony Capitalism to State Capitalism". Peterson Institute for International Economics. ISBN 978-0190499204. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ↑ Putin: Russia's Choice. Richard Sakwa, (Routledge, 2008) pp. 143–150
- ↑ Playing Russian Roulette: Putin in search of good governance, by Andre Mommen, in Good Governance in the Era of Global is Neoliberalism: Conflict and Depolitisation in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa, by Jolle Demmers, Alex E. Fernández Jilberto, Barbara Hogenboom (Routledge, 2004)
- ↑ Weiss, Andrew S. (30 December 2013). "Opinion | Russia's Oligarchy, Alive and Well". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ Borak, Donna (30 January 2018). "The full 'Putin list' of Russian oligarchs and political figures released by the US Treasury". CNN. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
- ↑ Chalabi, Mona (9 October 2013). "The world's wealthy: where on earth are the richest 1%?". The Guardian. Retrieved 19 September 2018.
- ↑ Treisman, Daniel (1 December 2007). "Putin's Silovarchs". Orbis. 51 (1): 141–153. doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2006.10.013. ISSN 0030-4387.
- 1 2 3 Harding, Luke (25 October 2008). "Twilight of the oligarchs". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
- ↑ "Russian Individuals Named on US 'Oligarch List'". VOA. 30 January 2018. Retrieved 13 March 2020.
- ↑ McKenzie, Sheena; Gaouette, Nicole; Borak, Donna (30 January 2018). "The full 'Putin list' of Russian oligarchs and political figures released by the US Treasury | CNN Politics". CNN. Retrieved 7 January 2023.
- ↑ "Report to Congress Pursuant to Section 241 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 Regarding Senior Foreign Political Figures and Oligarchs in the Russian Federation and Russian Parastatal Entities". Financial Times. 29 January 2018. Archived from the original on 8 January 2023. Retrieved 30 January 2018.
- ↑ Stubbs, Jack; Devitt, Polina (30 January 2018). "U.S. names Kremlin outliers in 'telephone directory' sanctions report". Reuters U.K. Archived from the original on 8 January 2023. Retrieved 8 January 2023.
- ↑ Chorafas, D. Capitalism without capital. Springer, 2009.
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- ↑ Thomas, Landon Jr. (5 September 2008). "Russia's Oligarchs May Face a Georgian Chill". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 April 2010.
- 1 2 "Margin Calls Ignite Billionaire Fire Sale". Archived from the original on 26 October 2008.
- 1 2 Lozano, Alicia (26 February 2022). "Here are the Russian oligarchs targeted in Biden's sanctions". CNBC. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ Cormack, Rachel (March 2022). "Russian Billionaires Are Moving Their Luxury Superyachts to Avoid Having Them Seized". Robb Report. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ The Associated Press (26 February 2022). "The U.S. sanctions on Russian oligarchs miss the richest of the rich". NPR. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ Macias, Amanda (2 March 2022). "Biden administration launches new 'KleptoCapture' task force to go after Russian oligarchs". CNBC. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ Valinsky, Jordan (21 March 2022). "New Russian asset tracker details oligarchs' mansions and yachts". CNN Business. Retrieved 24 March 2022.
- ↑ Andrey Rudakov. (July 14. 2022). “Putin’s daughter has a big new job at Russia’s most powerful business lobby,”. Fortune Magazine website Retrieved 26 January 2023.
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- ↑ "CONSOLIDATED LIST" (PDF). 29 September 2023.
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- ↑ "Акции и дивиденды". sfiholding.ru. Retrieved 19 August 2021.
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- ↑ "Treasury Designates Russian Oligarchs, Officials, and Entities in Response to Worldwide Malign Activity". US Treasury. 6 April 2018. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
- ↑ (in Ukrainian) Viktor Medvedchuk: political legalization, Hromadske.TV (7 August 2018).
- ↑ Stedman, Scott; Bernardini, Matt (30 April 2021). "Giuliani Probe Expands, Ukrainian Ally Under Criminal Investigation: Former Ukrainian politician Andrii Artemenko received a secret payment in 2019 from a television station owned by Putin's closest ally in Ukraine. The FBI is now investigating the Giuliani ally". Forensic News. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
- ↑ "European Union Individuals' Sanctions List". European Commission External Service. 15 March 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2023.
- ↑ "Ukraine conflict: Who's in Putin's inner circle and running the war?". BBC News. 2 March 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ↑ Troianovski, Anton (30 January 2022). "The Hard-Line Russian Advisers Who Have Putin's Ear". The New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
- ↑ "After Putin: 12 people ready to ruin Russia next". POLITICO. 29 September 2022. Retrieved 2 October 2022.
- ↑ "U.S. Treasury Announces Unprecedented & Expansive Sanctions Against Russia, Imposing Swift and Severe Economic Costs". U.S. Department of the Treasury. 24 February 2022. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
- ↑ "Putin dismisses powerful chief of staff". News24. 12 August 2016. Retrieved 12 August 2016.
- ↑ "U.S. Sanctions Usmanov, Prigozhin Among Russian Elites". Bloomberg.com. 3 March 2022. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
- ↑ "Marathon Group official page". en.marathongroup.ru.
- ↑ Varvitsioti, Eleni; Foy, Henry; Pop, Valentina (9 March 2022). "EU set to add 14 more Russian business chiefs to its sanctions list". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 March 2022. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ↑ "Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/396 of 9 March 2022 implementing Regulation (EU) No 269/2014 concerning restrictive measures in respect of actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine".
- 1 2 "The rise and fall of Londongrad". The Economist. 5 March 2022. Archived from the original on 6 March 2022. Retrieved 6 March 2022.
- ↑ Michael Weiss, "In Plain Sight: The Kremlin's London Lobby", World Affairs, Vol. 175, No. 6 (March/April 2013), pp. 84–91.
- ↑ According to British journalist Nick Watt, reporting for ABC's Nightline (broadcast of 1 June 2007).
- ↑ Goodley, Simon (21 March 2022). "Inside the £250m Abramovich property portfolio". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
- ↑ Behrmann, Anna (30 June 2016). "New Athlone House owner: 'I want to restore it to its former glory'". Hampstead Highgate Express. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ Woollacott, Emma (15 September 2016). "Billionaire's plans for £65 million derelict mansion approved". AOL. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
- ↑ "Over there: American and other foreign owners are revolutionizing British football", The Boston Globe, 25 May 2007
- ↑ Flood, Alison (26 April 2018). "Waterstones bookshops bought by hedge fund Elliott Advisors". The Guardian.
- ↑ Johnston, Ian (17 April 2022). "Waterstones turns new page as custodian of independent bookselling". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 17 April 2022.
Further reading
- Åslund, Anders (2019). Russia's Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300243093. OCLC 1137082828.
- Bullough, Oliver (2022). Butler to the World: How Britain Helps the World's Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250281920. OCLC 1303568974.
- Bowen, Andrew, "Why London Is So Crucial to Putin's Russia". The Interpreter, 20 March 2014.
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