WASHINGTON – President Biden’s administration on Thursday sanctioned more Russian oligarchs – but continued to spare two billionaires who worked with eldest son Hunter Biden to find US real estate investments.
The defection came two days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) launched an impeachment inquiry against the president, accusing him of lying about his involvement in Hunter’s foreign affairs.
The Treasury Department said that it “imposed nearly 100 sanctions on Russia’s elite and Russian industrial base, financial institutions, and technology suppliers as the United States continues to leverage sanctions and economic sanctions to undermine Russia’s ability to wage its war against Ukraine.”
Oligarchs Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov are not among the new targets — although they have similarities to other newly sanctioned businessmen.
They include Russian billionaire Andrei Bokarev, president of Russian military equipment manufacturer Transmash, and Iskander Makhmudov, who owns financial services and mining companies.
Bokarev and Makhmudov had previously been sanctioned by the UK, the Treasury Department noted — as had Yevtushenkov who was linked to Hunter.
Baturina, Moscow’s former first lady, amassed her $1.3 billion fortune through real estate and investments and dined with Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Joe Biden at least once at DC’s Café Milano. For reasons that remain unclear, he transferred $3.5 million in February 2014 to a firm controlled by Hunter and his associate Devon Archer.
President Biden’s administration on Thursday sanctioned more Russian oligarchs — but continued to spare two billionaires who work with Hunter Biden’s eldest son.AFP via Getty Images
Baturina attended a previously undisclosed dinner with Vice President Biden and fellow Kazakhstani Hunter in the spring of 2014 at Café Milano, Archer told the House Oversight Committee on July 31.
He also dined in April 2015 at the same restaurant with Joe and Hunter Biden and two Ukrainian and Kazakh customers, a witness told The Post. He was discussed as an invitation to the meal in a record found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter met at least twice with Yevtushenkov, according to records from his laptop. Yevtushenkov’s company Sistema controls Russia’s largest mobile phone supplier, MTS, and until last year owned Russian rocket and radar maker RTI and military drone maker Kronstadt.
Yevtushenkov is believed to be worth about $1.8 billion and last year reduced his stake in Sistema to 49.2% in an apparent response to UK sanctions by giving his son Feliz 10%.
“I think he should be sanctioned,” Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told The Post in March. “I don’t understand why he didn’t come.”
Yevtushenkov allegedly sought to cooperate with Hunter Biden because of a Justice Department investigation of MTS for paying nearly $1 billion in bribes to Uzbek officials between 2004 and 2012.
Oligarchs Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov are not among the new targets — although they have similarities to other newly sanctioned businessmen.Getty Images
Yevtushenkov has admitted meeting Hunter Biden at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan in March 2012 and laptop records show they met again in January 2013 in DC before seeing a commercial real estate development the next day in northern Virginia.
“I am asking [Yevtushenkov], ‘Why are you doing this?’ on the front end — before I understood that they were going to buy some properties,” a source told The Post. “‘Why are you doing this? Why would you pay the vice president’s son to meet at a public restaurant in New York City?’
“He explained to me that, you know … ‘I thought it would be good to have a good relationship with this guy … maybe he can help us and we can do something good for him,'” the source continued. “It was a complete quid pro quo that he would do.”
“I told him that’s not how it works in America, [but] he basically laughed at me and told me that I was very naive,” the source recalled of Yevtushenkov.
Vladimir Yevtushenkov courted Hunter Biden while his father’s vice president helped lead the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin.Getty Images
MTS finally settled the Uzbekistan corruption case with the Trump Justice Department in 2019 and paid an $850 million fine. The NYSE froze stock trading in the company last year after the Ukraine invasion.
Follow today’s most important news
Stay up to date with the Evening Update.
Baturina and Yevtushenkov courted Hunter Biden while his father’s vice president helped lead the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin before taking over US Ukraine policy after Russia seized Crimea in 2014.
The scope of Baturina and Yevtushenkov’s US real estate investment is ultimately unclear, as is what share of the proceeds may have been shared with Hunter.
The House Oversight Committee in August released a report that traced the transfer of most of Baturina’s $3.5 million to other entities jointly held by Hunter Biden and Archer, but Archer said he was unsure what the money was for and the ultimate disposition remains unclear.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced Tuesday that the panel will subpoena the bank records of Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden to more accurately track the flow of foreign income.
Archer told the House committee that Baturina worked primarily with his Rosemont Realty firm, where he said he poured more than $100 million. Hunter Biden was briefly associated with the company as well, Archer said.
The White House and State Department did not respond to email requests for comment.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
