Putin’s friends start secret talks with the US on joint business projects in Russia
30 November 10:28
Oligarchs close to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin – Yuriy Kovalchuk, Gennadiy Timchenko, brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg – have begun to discuss with the United States in confidence future joint projects in Russia in the event that sanctions are lifted. According to The Wall Street Journal’s sources, during the secret meetings, representatives of the businessmen offered American companies access to gas fields, rare earth metals, and large energy assets, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
These are gas concessions in the Sea of Okhotsk and four other areas. Putin’s friends also mentioned mining rare earth metals near Norilsk’s nickel deposits and in six undeveloped areas of Siberia, the sources said.
According to the WSJ, Gentry Beach, a university friend of Donald Trump Jr. and a campaign contributor to his father’s campaign, was negotiating the purchase of a 9.9% stake in the Arctic LNG project with Novatek, a company partially owned by Timchenko. And Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Neil Chapman met secretly in the Qatari capital of Doha with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin to discuss a return to the Sakhalin project, after the American company left the Russian market following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
Another topic was the revival of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, which is under EU sanctions. According to sources, investor Stephen Lynch paid $600,000 to Chas McDowell, a lobbyist close to Trump Jr. for help in obtaining a license from the US Treasury Department to buy Nord Stream 2.
