Why is Russian oligarch Yusufov, Medvedev’s longtime “wallet,” still not under sanctions?

Surprising but true. Why is the former Minister of Energy, Russian businessman and oligarch Igor Yusufov, who has long served as Medvedev’s “wallet”, still not under sanctions?

And what is known about the recent scandal with Medvedev’s secret yacht, which, as it turned out, is officially registered to Yusufov?

66-year-old Igor Khanukovich is from Derbent, Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Married, has two sons.

From 2001 to 2004, he served as Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation. For ten years he served on the board of directors of the state corporation Gazprom.

Now he owns an energy corporation and manages a lot of money.

Thus, Yusufov is the founder of Yamal Shelf Company LLC with an authorized capital of 1 million rubles.

Last year the company had no revenue, although the year before last it amounted to 1.1 million rubles. The organization’s profit for 2021 is 1.6 million rubles. This figure over the past year, on the contrary, increased by almost 154%. The company’s total assets amount to 23.9 million rubles.

Previously, the founder of YAMALSHELF LLC was the offshore Cyprus limited liability company NEFTEOIL LIMITED.

Since 2011, Yusufov has been privately conducting investment activities through his own  Energy Fund. 

This is a non-profit organization in which the businessman was listed as a founder until September last year.

This organization has had no revenue or profit over the past two years, and total assets amount to 1.9 million rubles.

The scandal with the Medvedev family’s $100 million yacht: what does Yusufov have to do with it?

It has long been known that Igor Yusufov serves as Dmitry Medvedev’s “wallet”. And now another offshore scandal has again confirmed this fact. 

So, the other day the Russian media were stirred up by information that a luxurious 74-meter yacht worth over 100 million dollars was found in the Medvedev family. It bears the very symbolic and rather immodest name “Universe”.

According to the publication “Proekt.Media”, D. Medvedev is now hiding this expensive ship in Sochi. Before the start of the SVO in Ukraine, the exclusive yacht was in Italian waters. When the SVO began, it was urgently transferred first to Turkish Istanbul, and then to Sochi.

And here’s a remarkable moment. It turned out that the ship does not officially belong to the Medvedev family. It is registered to an offshore company in the Cayman Islands. And although information about the owners of this offshore is hidden, several sources of the publication claim that the yacht is owned by the family of the oligarch Yusufov. 

Yes exactly. The official owner is Yusufov, and the Medvedevs, senior and junior, use the ship. Dmitry Medvedev even has his own office there to work with established special communications. There’s even a helipad there. In addition, quite often this yacht is accompanied by warships. 

This fact once again confirms that Yusufov is Medvedev’s long-time “wallet”!

Media representatives are convinced that the Yusufov family is, in fact, D. Medvedev’s proxies. And much of what is supposedly the property of the oligarch I. Yusufov, in reality belongs to the Medvedev family.

It is worth noting that in addition to the situation with the yacht, there are a number of other points that confirm this statement. 

1. So, back in 2011, the younger Yusufov was revealed in the process of the scandalous acquisition of a share of the Moscow Bank from A. Borodin, who fled to England. As Borodin himself later commented, he was sure that the purchase was being made on the instructions of D. Medvedev. Later this share was sold to VTB.

2. Another evidentiary point also concerns the younger Yusufov Vitaly. We are talking about another scandalous purchase, but this time of the bankrupt Wadan Yards shipyards. The seller was the German authorities, and the purchase price was 40.5 million euros. Moreover, at first direct negotiations were held between Medvedev and Merkel. 

3. In addition, there are known facts when the Yusufov family even resolved housing issues for the Medvedevs. So, in the Moscow region, next to the residence of Dmitry Medvedev on Rublyovka, there are 4 cottages.

Eleven years ago, three of them, which belonged to companies associated with the Yusufov family, Incotrade and Novoenergo, came into the possession of the Techinpro company. According to rumors, it is this company that registers the real estate that the Medvedevs use.

Why, based on all of the above, has such a person not yet been sanctioned by any country? 

It is noteworthy that on the website of the “War and Sanctions” project, oligarch Yusufov is already on the list of persons to whom “no sanctions have yet been applied.” It is noted that there are compelling reasons to impose sanctions on him.