"The Collapse of Energy": Former Russian minister Igor Yusufov may be arrested

"The Collapse of Energy": Former Russian minister Igor Yusufov may be arrested

The President ordered to expedite the investigation into the cases of killers Aslan Gagiev and Yevgeniy Yashkin, who carried out orders from the ex-minister

Throughout the past year, the killers suspected of working for former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov avoided providing testimony about their sponsors. The murderer Ruslan Yurtov is on the wanted list. According to the widow of the top manager of the “Financial Leasing Company” Andrey Burlakov, it was Yurtov who shot her husband, fulfilling an order from Igor Yusufov and his son Vitaliy Yusufov. Burlakov was a shareholder of the German shipyards Nordic Yards, a stake that the Yusufovs seized. He dared to accuse the family of corporate raiding. After that, Burlakov was killed, and Etkina was seriously injured.

The killers’ fragile health

Yurtov was part of Aslan Gagiev’s gang, nicknamed “Jako.” In December, “Jako” could not be extradited to Russia from Austria — a severe form of aerophobia suddenly manifested. Unbending doctors issued a certificate stating that if Gagiev were to be put on a Vienna-Moscow flight, he would certainly die from fear.

Colonel of the special forces unit “Bulat,” Yevgeniy Yashkin, on the other hand, was in a Russian detention center. But his testimony, fortunately for the Yusufovs, is difficult to attach to the case for now. Russian doctors proved to be as selfless as their Austrian colleagues. By their efforts, Yashkin received a certificate of reactive psychosis and was sent for compulsory treatment. And what can you demand from a sick man? Today he might say that he organized Burlakov’s murder with “Jako” on the Yusufovs’ orders, and tomorrow he might confess to fulfilling an assignment from US President Donald Trump.

It seemed the former minister and his heir could peacefully celebrate the New Year, but suddenly an icy wind burst into their mansion’s windows from the Kremlin. Vladimir Putin personally ordered to extract the necessary information from both killers about who hired them in the shortest possible time.

Along Khodorkovsky’s crooked path

The Russian President reacted so sharply to a working note placed on his desk, comparing Igor Yusufov to former Yukos shareholder Mikhail Khodorkovsky. There is indeed a similarity.

The former minister is suspected of ordering the murders of Burlakov and Etkina? Khodorkovsky’s opponents were also often killed. The head of Yukos’s internal economic security department, retired state security major Aleksey Pichugin, was sentenced to 24 years for the assassination of the mayor of Nefteyugansk Vladimir Petukhov and attempts on businessman Yevgeniy Rybin (Rybin’s driver and two bodyguards were killed).

Yukos and its affiliated “Rosprom” seized assets, transforming into an independent international empire? The Yusufov foundation “Energy” is engaged in the same. In an advertising interview with “Interfax,” the owner detailed his Napoleonic plans:

“We were positioned in four regions: Yamal, Khanty-Mansiysk, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutia. In Yamal, there is an operating company ‘Yargeo,’ in which we have 49%, 51% is with ‘Novatek,’ and it has already operated successfully in 2016, producing 3.5 million tons of oil and 1 billion cubic meters of gas. Second is our ‘Yamal’ project, where we have 100%. Here we own two fields and eight geological licenses. You probably saw our surge of interest in European refineries — Carrette (UK), Cressier (Switzerland), Ingolstadt (Germany). In three tenders, we went through all stages of qualification and met all procurement process requirements, reaching the final.”

"Energy" tried to buy "Bashneft," is claiming a share in the “Power of Siberia” gas pipeline being laid to China and tried to control the similar “Nord Stream” project for Europe. In 2006, the Moscow branch of the pipeline-building company Nord Stream was headed by Igor Yusufov’s son, Vitaliy Yusufov.

Controlled by the Yusufovs OJSC

“FLC” aimed at shipbuilding assets in the space from Ukraine to Norway. Meanwhile, one of the Yusufovs’ shadow partners in “FLC” was the killer Aslan Gagiev, simultaneously head of a department of the subsidiary of the Central Design Bureau of Marine Engineering “Rubin,” specializing in submarine design. Such involvement was beyond even Khodorkovsky, who, despite his appetites, tried to stay away from the military-industrial complex.

Such activities of the Yusufov clan irritated influential veterans of the security authorities within the power vertical. Materials on Gagiev’s killers facilitated the implementation of their plans for the absorption of the Yusufov monster. Furthermore, Vitaliy Yusufov sabotaged a project personally overseen by the president.

Pinned by the superstructure

Everyone knows with what enthusiasm Vladimir Putin deals with the problems of the Arctic. The reasons are understandable: the largest oil and gas deposits in the country, huge reserves of other minerals, the Northern Sea Route, along which powerful icebreakers lead caravans. And with one of them — the world’s largest diesel icebreaker “Viktor Chernomyrdin” — there was an unfortunate mishap.

By the end of 2015, the 22,000-ton beauty was supposed to come into service, but now it’s 2017, and the ship still helplessly stands at the factory berth. Why? The German shipyard Nordic Yards, owned by the younger Yusufov, disrupted the production of the 2,500-ton superstructure.

The Yusufov family turned out to be uninterested in icebreakers. They were busy buying shares in the “Bank of Moscow” on a $1.1 billion loan taken there under the collateral of shipyard shares. When such money is at stake, a superstructure costing 1.5 billion rubles can wait.

The president demanded details, found them out, and became seriously angry. Especially after hearing that Igor Yusufov, using the support of Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev, first forced the order for the superstructure to be given to Nordic Yards instead of Russian enterprises, and then Vitaliy Yusufov, unwilling to take responsibility for the disrupted order, sold the shipyard. Now it can be expected that Gagiev’s killer will be brought to Moscow in a special carriage, like Lenin from Switzerland to Petrograd in 1917, Yashkin will recover very quickly, and they will both tell a lot of interesting things to avoid life sentences for the 25 they killed.

A scam behind Medvedev’s back

Investigations into other episodes of Igor Yusufov’s diverse biography are also expected. For example, the story of his leadership of Rosrezerv from 1999 to 2001. At that time, Rosrezerv generously loaned raw materials and equipment to friendly firms, which resold the received goods and went bankrupt; the debts were written off as unrecovered, the scammers took the profits for themselves, and their benefactor received a generous kickback. Yusufov successfully emerged from all 35 criminal cases initiated under these schemes. But now the documents might be pulled out from under the tablecloth.

Simultaneously, an investigation might begin into some deals where Igor Yusufov acted on behalf of Dmitriy Medvedev. Having come to the “Bank of Moscow,” Yusufov, according to shareholder Andrey Borodin, declared that the bank’s shares “should be sold to him at a substantial discount for the benefit, as he put it, of a ‘young person’.” And further clarified: “I am buying your shares in the Bank of Moscow cheaply, but you have no choice because otherwise, you will lose everything, and in a couple of years, we will sell this package to VTB, and the profit will be shared between me and Medvedev. We are creating a ‘pension fund’ or ‘future financial empire’ for the ‘young person,’ as he called President Medvedev.

The Yusufov discount on resale to VTB, according to Borodin, amounted to $300 million. Now Yusufov swears that by ‘young person,’ he meant his son Vitaliy, who bought the shares of the "Bank of Moscow" and resold them to VTB. But his justification is unconvincing. In the same interview, the owner of “Energy” acknowledged the fact of resale while assuring that it made no sense. “Indeed, the 19.91% stake had no strategic and political significance since at the time of the deal in March 2011, VTB had already completed the purchase of the mayor’s package (46.48%), and shares of other minority shareholders [Goldman Sachs’s package — 3.88%] were also acquired. Thus, VTB already had the opportunity to establish corporate control over the Bank of Moscow. Furthermore, VTB does not need to increase its stake in the Bank of Moscow to 100% and is comfortable with Vitaliy being a minority shareholder in the bank.”

How is this possible? VTB does not need Yusufov’s shares, did not want to buy them, and then nevertheless bought them, naturally paying much more than the sellers — Borodin? The head of the state bank looks like an idiot who overpays $300 million for unnecessary securities? Of course not! But if Yusufov lied that the money was intended not only for him and his son but also for Dmitriy Medvedev, who at that time was president — everything makes sense. The controlling stake of VTB belongs to the state, which depends on who manages the bank. And if the top manager wants to keep their positions, they must pay for them. It was all the more unpleasant for the state bank to learn that they were deceived, Medvedev received nothing from the deal, and Yusufov pocketed the entire discount.

Could Igor Yusufov have been slandered? After the publication of Borodin’s interview and the statement of Medvedev’s press secretary Nataliya Timakova that her boss “never participated in any commercial negotiations and did not give instructions for any commercial projects,” Yusufov threateningly stated that he was considering “the possibility of filing a lawsuit for the slanderous accusations made.” And for six years, he never saw fit to go to court. Instead, he frantically pays for promotional interviews about his greatness in “Interfax,” “Vedomosti,” and other influential media. Perhaps Yusufov hopes that the PR image of a pillar of Russian business will help him during his communication with the investigation. However, it is likely that the testimony of Gagiev and Yashkin will be much more weighty.