Russia's invasion should convince western officials to create new transparency requirements for nonprofits willing to accept donations from oligarchs — and to reveal just how much money they’ve taken from those close to the Kremlin. cjcmichel writes
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images Following Moscow’s horrific invasion of Ukraine, an overdue wave of attention has been focused on where Russian and post-Soviet oligarchs hide their wealth in the West — from real estate to private equity to the art market. Until the past few weeks, however, less attention had been paid to how these oligarchs launder their reputations and gain access to the highest rungs of western policy-makers in the process.
Unfortunately, this number is hardly comprehensive. Because there is no broader requirement for donation transparency from the nonprofits, we had to rely on private companies that aggregate data on donations, as well as IRS 990 forms and publicly available annual reports. But even with this snapshot, we gained unprecedented insight into how these oligarchs, many of whom are now sanctioned, targeted U.S.
U.S. nonprofits even accepted funds from the richest oligarchs in Russia. Vladimir Potanin, considered Russia’s wealthiest oligarch, successfully donated to multiple significant U.S. nonprofits, including the Kennedy Center and Guggenheim Museum. And he didn’t stop at donations: Potanin managed to obtain seats on the Guggenheim’s board of trustees and the global advisory board of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank.
As if that weren’t enough, Blavatnik built an ownership stake alongside Vekselberg in notorious Russian aluminum producer Rusal, where the other major shareholder was the company directly overseen by Oleg Deripaska, yet another sanctioned oligarch. When the consortium in 2013 sold TNK-BP to Rosneft — a company run by Igor Sechin, also a sanctioned Russian official close to Putin — Blavatnik netted $7 billion.
Following the Council on Foreign Relations donation, a group of leading anti-corruption experts in the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine joined a range of former U.S. officials to specifically call out the oligarch. “Blavatnik uses his ‘philanthropy’ — funds obtained by and with the consent of the Kremlin, at the expense of the state budget and the Russian people — at leading western academic and cultural institutions to advance his access to political circles,” the signatories wrote in an open letter.
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