Inside the Lavish Lifestyles of Putin’s Inner Circle

Private beachfronts, million-dollar bathtubs, evenings of wine, whiskey, cigars, and karaoke – or performances by Russian pop stars whose fame stretches again to the Nineties.

Those are a few of the trappings of an “ultraluxe” villa complex in Dubai the place Sergei Chemezov – the Western-sanctioned head of the large Russian state protection conglomerate Rostec and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin since they had been KGB officers in communist East Germany – spends time with household, buddies, and associates.

While they aren’t the formal house owners of the mansions, Chemezov and a minimum of two heads of Rostec subsidiaries are neighbors at XXII Carat, a gated complex of elaborate, multimillion-dollar villas on the Palm Jumeirah, a man-made island on the Persian Gulf coast, Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian investigative unit, has discovered.

Chemezov, 72, grew to become buddies with Putin after they lived in the identical condominium constructing in Dresden in the 1980s, when Chemezov was a KGB normal and Putin a lieutenant colonel within the Soviet spy company. In 1996, when Putin grew to become President Boris Yeltsin’s deputy chief of employees, he made Chemezov head of the Kremlin’s overseas financial relations division.

Rostec and its sprawling internet of items and subsidiaries manufacture lots of the weapons and components Russia makes use of in its conflict in opposition to Ukraine, now in its fourth yr since Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Chemezov has supported the invasion and echoed Putin’s narratives in public feedback, accusing the United States and its Western allies of scary the conflict and saying they risked triggering a world conflict. The Rostec CEO since 2007, Chemezov was hit with US, UK, and EU sanctions following the Russian seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby

Since 2015, he has been visiting the United Arab Emirates a minimum of annually, in line with leaked border crossing information. A supply who’s acquainted with Chemezov’s interior circle stated that the villa Chemezov makes use of was bought a couple of years earlier than the advanced was completed late in 2018, and that Chemezov and his spouse “put a lot into it, like a second home,” personally selecting the inside and intently monitoring the development.

The villa they constructed is the most costly of the three kinds on the advanced, Sapphire, every of which has seaside entry and a few of that are fitted with a $1 million bathtub made crystal or quartz – rose or inexperienced. In 2020, Sapphire villas value $25.8 million, and the present asking worth is about $31 million.

The different kinds are Emerald and Ruby; all of them have a minimum of seven bedrooms, a hammam bathtub, a climate-controlled wine cellar, a landscaped backyard, and a swimming pool.

Hidden Ownership?

Formally, the two-story, 2,170 sq. meter residence Chemezov makes use of is owned by a agency known as Neve Limited, in line with information revealed by C4ADS, a US-based nonprofit data-analysis and global-research group. Systema was unable to trace down details about Neve Limited, however the C4ADS information reveals an e-mail handle and telephone quantity that leaked paperwork recommend are these of Natalya Agapova, a lawyer who has longstanding monetary ties to Chemezov and his household.

Agapova declined to touch upon property at XXII Carat, and Rostec didn’t reply to a request for remark.

One and two doorways down from the Chemezov villa are barely smaller houses utilized by the heads of two Rostec subsidiaries: Nikolai Kolesov, the director of Russian Helicopters; and Aleksandr Mikheyev, the director of Rosoboronexport, the primary Russian arms gross sales firm.

The villa Mikheyev makes use of is registered to his son, Aleksei, in line with C4ADS information and Dubai land data. The formal proprietor of the one Kolesov makes use of is a neighborhood UAE firm, Veles Electronics, which the late Putin foe and anti-corruption crusader Aleksei Navalny’s associates linked to the Russian Helicopters chief in a recent report.

Aleksei Mikheyev declined to remark. Rosoboronexport and Russian Helicopters didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Chemezov typically spends time with Mikheyev and Kolesov when he stays in Dubai, sources with data of the Rostec management informed Systema, talking on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to debate the matter publicly.

Their gatherings sometimes contain ingesting alcohol, smoking cigars, and singing karaoke, sources stated – although generally it was patriotic Russian pop stars corresponding to Oleg Gazmanov and Grigory Leps, each below EU sanctions since 2022 over their help for the conflict, doing the crooning.

Russian Roots

The sources of wealth that allow state-owned firm chiefs like Chemezov, Mikheyev, and Kolesov to afford such property are murky, although the latter additionally controls a profitable community of personal navy trade firms.

A haven for wealthy Russians, significantly for these hit by sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, Dubai is on the Persian Gulf — however the roots of XXII Carat are deep in Russia. The developer was an organization known as Forum Group, primarily based in Yekaterinburg and based by Oleg Cherepanov, a distinguished businessman who was recognized within the Ural Mountains metropolis as Cherep – “the Skull.”

Cherepanov has lived in Dubai since 2014 and heads Forum Group Dubai. He has distanced himself from the Russian-based Forum Group, which is now 80 % owned by Tamara Cherepanova, 77.

In Yekaterinburg, Forum Group constructed an ice enviornment for UGMK, a metals large whose co-owner, US and UK-sanctioned billionaire Andrei Bokarev, is reportedly a buddy of Chemezov’s and purportedly owns actual property at XXII Carat.

The C4ADS database signifies that two Ruby-class villas belonged to Diana Madzhitova, 29, who has flown to the U.A.E. with Bokarev greater than 20 instances within the final 5 years, in line with leaked border crossing information. One of these homes was apparently later acquired by family of a extra distinguished billionaire: Alisher Usmanov.

Usmanov, a metals-to-media tycoon with a fortune of greater than $16 billion, in line with Forbes, is below US, UK, EU, and different sanctions.

Usmanov’s niece Gulnoz Kocharova and her husband are beneficiary house owners of two Ruby-class villas at XXII Carat, together with the one which had been registered to Madzhitova, in line with Dubai land data.

“We categorically reject the implications and assumptions embedded in your questions. There is no cause or obligation to address them further,” a lawyer for Usmanov, Joachim Steinhoefel, wrote in a response to a question from Systema.

Kocharova hung up on a journalist who known as for remark, and she or he and her husband didn’t reply to queries despatched by messaging app. Bokarev and Madzhitova didn’t reply to makes an attempt to contact them.

By RFE/RL 

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com