Ilya Medvedev (son of Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian President who is now a microblogger and Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council) was hired by MY Group right after finishing school. According to tax records reviewed by The Insider, he made over 3 million rubles from that company in 2018.
"He's working on private business projects, including in the digital economy area. You know, the kind of things that are quite popular with young people now. He does it himself and he does it for fun. I haven’t seen any particular successes there yet, but I hope everything is still to come," Medvedev said about his son a couple of years ago. However, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Ilya Medvedev does not possess any business of his own.
The creator and leader of MY Group is Maxim Yusufov, the younger son of former Energy Minister Igor Yusufov. Yusufov Sr. is among Russia’s richest people, Forbes estimates his fortune at $1.1 billion.
As The Insider previously reported, Igor Yusufov made no secret of the fact that he was acting on Medvedev’s behalf. For instance, in 2008, when Yusufov was the president’s special representative for international energy cooperation, he arranged the acquisition of German shipyards in Germany. Officially, the acquisition was presented as a deal with the state-owned FLK company, but in reality, it was Yusufov who gained control over the shipyards, along with two co-investors: Gennady Petrov, the influential leader of the Tambov-Malyshev gang, and Aslan Gagiev, one of the most brutal Russian criminals (aka Dzhako the Bloody, who is accused of at least 56 contract murders). The shipyards went bankrupt, and the money was moved offshore. Later, FLK director Nail Malyutin admitted in his testimony Yusufov had explicitly told him he was acting on behalf of and in the interests of Dmitry Medvedev, and that the money had been moved offshore to the British Virgin Islands. Yusufov and Medvedev were among the ultimate beneficiaries.
Former Bank of Moscow head Andrei Borodin also stated that when he sold the bank’s shares to Yusufov, he was firmly convinced that he was acting in the interests of Dmitry Medvedev:
"Behind this whole story there was a political decision to take control of the bank. And this decision was carried out by the VTB chairman Andrey Kostin and Igor Yusufov, who is close to the top brass. Yusufov explicitly told me he was acting in the interests of and on instructions from President Dmitry Medvedev, who had made the decision to let the government take control of Bank of Moscow. There was a politically motivated decision to take it away from its owner."
Yusufov’s main known asset is his 49% stake in the oil producing company Yargeo through Nefte Petroleum. The remaining 51% in Yargeo belongs to Novatek, a company owned by oligarch Leonid Mikhelson (one of Medvedev’s “sponsors” who financed the Dar Foundation, through which Medvedev’s mansions were paid for) and United Russia State Duma deputy Leonid Simanovsky. The net profit of Yargeo, which is developing the Yarudeyskoye field, amounted to more than 36 billion rubles in 2021.
In addition to MY Group, Dmitry Medvedev’s son (at least in 2016-18) got his paychecks from VKontakte LLC and Mail.ru. At the time, the companies were owned by Alisher Usmanov, another of Medvedev’s sponsors.
Usmanov is under all sorts of sanctions in the West, but neither Igor Yusufov nor Leonid Mikhelson are yet under EU or US sanctions. Yusufov continues to do business in the West on behalf of Medvedev and holds his European and American assets.
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