Konstantin Nikolaev

Konstantin Nikolaev
Born	Konstantin Yuryevich Nikolaev (1971-03-05) 5 March 1971 (age 53) Dniepropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union[1]
Citizenship	Russia
Occupation	Businessman
Spouse	Married
Children	5

Konstantin Yuryevich Nikolaev (also transliterated as Nikolayev) (Russian: Константин Юрьевич Николаев; born March 5, 1971, in Dniepropetrovsk, Ukraine SSR) is a Russian billionaire and businessman who is a financial supporter of Maria Butina,[2][3][4] a co-owner of the Tula Cartridge Plant that supplies very large amounts of ammunition to Russian forces during Russia-Ukraine War, American Ethane, N-Trans and Globaltrans, the largest private rail operator in Russia, CIS, and the Baltic states.[5][6][7] He is only under sanctions by Ukraine.[7] According to the Forbes, in 2019 Nikolaev's net worth was estimated at $1.2 billion.[8][9]

Through Igor Levitin, Alexey Mordashov, Arkady Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko, and Alexander Voloshin, Nikolaev is a partner and close associate of numerous persons in Vladimir Putin's inner circle.[10][11]

Biography

Konstantin Nikolaev was born in Dnipropetrovsk on 5 March 1971.[12]

In 1996, Nikolaev, Nikita Mishin, Andrei Filatov, and Alexey Mordashov formed Severstaltrans (Russian: "Северстальтранс") with Mordashov holding a 50% stake and the other three holding equal stakes of the remaining shares.[13][14][15] In 1996, Igor Levitin became an employee of Severstaltrans and was the deputy director for transport engineering, rail transport and the operation of seaports from 1998 to 2004.[16][17] In early 2008, Mordashov sold his 50% stake in Severstaltrans to Nikolaev, Mishin, and Filatov and then Severstaltrans changed its name to N-Trans (Russian: "Н-Транс").[13][15][18] In 2008, 70% of Globaltrans shares were held by N-Trans.[18] In 2008, 30% of the shares of Cypriot-based Globaltrans Investments Plc were offered as an IPO in July 2012 in London for $520 million.[18][19][20]

He is a major investor in American Ethane and serves on its board.

While he was the Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation from May 20, 2004, to 2012, Igor Levitin ensured in 2010 that Mostotrest would construct the toll roads for the Russian federal highway network.[16][17] According to Finance Magazine (Russian: Журнал «Финанс») in February 2011, Nikolaev as co-owner of the N-Trans holding group was ranked 117 richest Russian with an estimated worth of $920 million which was nearly identical to his business partners Nikita Mishin ranked 116th worth an estimated $920 million and Andrey Filatov ranked 118th worth an estimated $920 million.[21] In 2010, they each had an estimated worth of $690 million according to Finance magazine.[22]

Late in 2011, Nikolaev and Mishin sold to Gennady Timchenko their 13% stake for $150–200 million in Transoil, which is one of the largest railway transporters of oil and oil products in Russia.[23][24]

In 2014, Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, Andrey Kunatbaev, Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, and Alexander Voloshin became the majority investors in John Houghtaling II's American Ethane.[25][26] After Roman Abramov divested his investment in American Ethane in April 2017, Nikolaev, Yuriev, and Kunatbaev became co-owners of American Ethane with a combined stake of 88%.[25][26][27][a]

Before October 2014, Nikolaev and his investment partners owned a combined 31.55% stake and Arkady Rotenberg held the other 68.45% stake in Marc O'Polo Investments which held a 38.63% stake in the major road construction firm Mostotrest (Russian: "Мостотрест"), but, in October 2014 after Rotenberg fell under international sanctions because of the Russian interference in Ukraine and Russian annexation of Crimea, Rotenberg transferred his stake to his son Igor.[9] In April 2015, Marc O'Polo investments sold its stake in Mostotrest to NPF Blagosostoyanie (Russian: НПФ "Благосостояние").[9]

Nikolaev, Mishin, and Filatov own 34.5% of Globaltrans (an 11.5% stake for each) but sold the stevedore and ports holding company assets, Global Ports, in December 2017.[9][28] Sergey Shishkarev's Delo Group purchased the stakes of Nikolaev, Mishin, and Filatov in Global Ports which includes the management of the ports at the First Container Terminal, Petrolesport, Ust-Luga Container Terminal, and the Moby Dick in northwestern Russia; Eastern Stevedoring Company in the Far East; and two in Finland: the Multi-Link Helsinki and the Multi-Link Kotka.[29][30]

Since 2014 Nikolaev is a major investor in a satellite imagery company ScanEx (Russian: Сканэкс) that supplies classified imagery intelligence to the Russian government which received its license for classified intelligence from the FSB.[31][32] ScanEx is closely associated with Arkady Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg and his Mostotrest.[33][34][b]

Although Nikolaev, as a member of the 13 August 2011 established Right to Arms (Russian: Право на оружие),[35] supports liberalization of arms ownership in Russia in 2011, Vladimir Lisin, who is the head of the Russian Shooting Union (Russian: Российский Стрелковый Союз), opposed Nikolaev.[36]

During the summer of 2013 as an investor, Nikolaev through his managers actively discussed with Alexander Tarasov, who is a representative of the Cyclone Institute and the son of Viktor Tarasov who is the owner of the Cyclone Institute,[c] and the mediator Alexey Beseda, who is the son of Sergey Beseda,[38] about the production of matrices for thermal imagers and "photoelectronic devices".[7][31][37][39][40][41] Nikolaev supports the FSB to develop night vision devices for Russian forces in order to avoid sanctions which cripple Russia obtaining the special matrix needed for mini displays and could only be obtained from EU and the United States before the 2014 sanctions against Russia.[39][40]

In January 2017, Konstantin Nikolaev, his wife Svetlana Nikolaeva and Maria Butina attended the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States.[42]

During Russian war against Ukraine, the Tula Cartridge Plant, which Nikolaev along with Igor Rotenberg are a co-owners since a 2 February 2017 announcement,[d] has supplied very large amounts of ammunition to support Russian forces.[7][43]

Nikolaev owns the La Madonnina winery in Bolgheri, Tuscany, which he purchased for 4 million euros.[35] Riccardo Cotarella, who is an oenologist, heads the association of Italian winemakers (Italian: Assoenologi) and, with his brother Renzo, produces wine under the Familia Cotarella brand, is the manager of both the La Madonnina estate and the cellar for Nikolaev.[7][35][47][48][49][50][e]

Sanctions

As of July 2023, only Ukraine has Konstantin Nikolaev and Svetlana Nikolaeva under sanctions.[7] No other countries have sanctioned Konstantin Yuryevich Nikolaev, his wife Svetlana Ivanovna Nikolaeva, their son Andrey Konstantinovich Nikolaev or other family members.[7] According to Ilya Yashin (Russian: Илья Яшин), who is an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and was incarcerated in Russia for his violations of laws in support of Russia during the Russia-Ukraine War, the family of Konstantin Nikolaev, defense plants in Russia, the NRA, Donald Trump, Trump's gun lobby, Steven Seagal, Maria Butina and others are supporting and financing Russia during its war in Ukraine and have effectively blocked more appropriate sanctions.[42] Ilya Yashin also claims that twenty year deal worth $26 billion between Konstantin Nikolaev's firm American Ethane to supply ethane to China is preventing better sanctions.[42] According to Yashin, Svetlana and Konstantin Nikolaev have met with King Charles III.[42][f]

Personal life

He is married, and has five children.[57][58][59][60]

Konstanin Nikolaev and his whole family are citizens of Malta and his children are residents of Switzerland.[42]

His wife Svetlana Ivanovna Nikolaeva (Russian: Светлана Ивановна Николаева), who enjoys shooting sports, owns ORSIS,[g] a Russian firearms company that supplies sniper rifles to SVR, FSO and the Russian National Guard, and, in October 2022, ORSIS rifles were tested by the Russian Ministry of Defense.[36][39][31][42][61] Since 2010, Konstantin Nikoleav was an investor in his wife's company.[36][39][31][7][62] Since 2010, he and the Rotenberg family co-own the armaments firm Promtekhnologiya LLC (Russian: ООО «Промтехнология»), which produces Orsis sniper rifles.[7] The deputy general director of Promtekhnologiya LLC is Alexey Rogozin, who is the nephew of Dmitry Rogozin, and oversees the military-industrial complex.[7] Steven Seagal is a paid sponsor for ORSIS rifles.[42] In 2015, Maria Butina gave numerous Americans, some of which are associated with the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) including Joe Gregory, David Keene, David Alexander Clark Jr. and Pete Brownell, tours of the Promtekhnologii plant in Podolsk which manufactures ORSIS rifles as well as access to Dmitry Rogozin.[42]

His son Andrey Nikolaev (Russian: Андрей Константинович Николаев) lived in the United States as a student at Columbia University in New York City during 2016 and was a volunteer at Donald Trump's headquarters during his Presidential Campaign in 2016.[57][42][63][64] While at Columbia University, Andrey Nikolaev was very active as a leader in the university's Republican (GOP) community who met with Mike Cernovich.[42]

Notes

1. Alexander Voloshin is a secret investor in the remaining 12% stake.[25]
2. ScanEx (Russian: Сканэкс) acts as a system integrator, creating and implementing new technical and information technology solutions in various sectors of the country's economy, implements projects based on remote sensing data in the field of ecology, science and education. Its subsidiaries are KOSMOSNIMKI.RU LLC (Russian: ООО «КОСМОСНИМКИ.РУ»), JSC "CRIT" (CENTER FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES) (Russian: АО «ЦРИТ» (ЦЕНТР РАЗВИТИЯ ИНФОРМАЦИОННЫХ ТЕХНОЛОГИЙ)), and MULTISCAN LLC (Russian: ООО «МУЛЬТИСКАН»). ScanEx supports government and business structures, environmental organizations, research and educational institutions, including Roslesinforg, Rosreestr, Rosselkhoznadzor, Roshydromet, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia, Rosneft, Gazprom, Lukoil, Atomflot, Yandex, leading universities in Russia and many others. SCANEX products are remote sensing, GIS and web technologies in the countries of Russia, Vietnam, India, Iran, Spain, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Nepal, Nigeria, UAE, USA, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus. ScanEx Group is the only company in Russia and the CIS that directly receives data from remote sensing satellites to its own network of stations, processes satellite information using its own technologies and provides access to satellite images and products based on them through its own geoportal services developed by ScanEx, which guarantees the consumer a low cost for data and prompt deliveries. ScanEx is the official distributor of the world's leading remote sensing satellite operators including DigitalGlobe (USA), Airbus Defence and Space (France), ImageSat International (Israel), MDA (Canada), SatrecInitiative (Korea), e-GEOS (Italy), RESTEC (Japan), Deimos (Spain), etc., by offering satellite images of various spatial resolutions. ScanEx is the only domestic company in Russia that has signed license agreements for direct reception of data from spacecraft of the SPOT, EROS, RADARSAT series, which makes it possible to survey the territory of Russia 24/7. Its flagship projects are the Scanex Maritime portal, the development of geoinformation services for the forest industry, the modernization of the Scanex Catalog service for ordering and working with satellite images, the development of geoinformation products and solutions for the education sector, etc.[34]
3. Viktor Tarasov through his Central Research Institure Cyclone and the Cyprus registered firm Rayfast, which is owned by three firms, formed in 2013 the joint venture Cyclone-IR which was supported by Dmitry Rogozin, deputy prime minister in charge of Russia's defense industry, who warned that Russia had a critical lack of thermal imaging devices by saying "At present, the Russian Army only has a few hundred individual imagers and no sighting systems and machine vision systems with advanced performance."[37]
4. The Tula Cartridge Plant (TPZ) (Russian: Тульский патронный завод (АО «ТПЗ»)) also owns the Ulyanovsk and Simbirsk cartridge plants.[43] Announced on 2 February 2017, Rotenberg became the largest shareholder when he obtained a 46.176% stake of TPZ shares from Alexei Solovov (Russian: Алексей Соловов), who had owned the plant since 2000. Another 46.173% of TPZ shares belong to the Stolichnaya Share Company also transliterated as Capital Share Company (Russian: Столичная паевая компания), which was established in 2008 by Valentina Gaposhkina (Russian: Валентина Гапошкина) and Natalya Kurt (Russian: Наталья Курт) on a parity basis and is 100% owned by JSC Industrial Technologies (Russian: АО «Промышленные Технологии»).[44] In 2018, Igor Rotenberg reduced his stake in TPS to 20.23%.[45][46]
5. Riccardo Cotarella, who is a consultant for Nikolaev's winery is also a consultant since spring 2017 to the 2009 established Divnomorsky Estate winery (Russian: Усадьба Дивноморское), which is also called Usadba Divnomorskoe, is very near Putin's palace which is located on the Black Sea coast near Gelendzhik, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, and, according to Alexey Navalny's Putin's Palace, Divnomorsky estate is the wine of Putin's palace, which is an official presidential house for the president of Russia, and the wine of Divnomorsky Estate, which began selling its wine to the public in October 2013, is often consumed at official Russian government state dinners, events, and functions.[50][51] Wine from Divnomorsky Estate or Usadba Divnomorskoe, which is also transliterated as Usadba Divnomorskoye, is known as "Putin's wine".[7][51] Led by a young Italian sparkling wine maker Matteo Coletti, first the winemaker Alexey Tolstoy (Russian: Алексей Толстой) and later the winemaker Oleg Nichvidyuk (Russian: Олег Ничвидюк) produced the Divnomorsky Estate wines including the sparkling Divnomorki (Russian: игристое «дивноморки»).[51] Owned by Lazurnaya Yagoda LLC (Russian: ООО «Лазурная ягода»), Divnomorsky Estate is located near a coastal cliff, which was formerly known for its nudist beach, on 47 hectares (120 acres) with 30 hectares (74 acres) north of Divnomorskoye, which is often called "False Gelendzhik" (Russian: «Фальшивый Геленджик»), with the remainder in the village of Praskoveevka which is near Cape Idokopas (Russian: мы́се Идокопа́с).[50][51][52] In 2010, Alexander Ponomarenko, who is the former co-owner of the Novorossiysk commercial sea port, became chairman of the board of directors of Sheremetyevo airport and gained ownership of Putin's Palace in 2011 from the co-owners of Rosinvest, which were Nikolai Shamalov and his two partners Dmitry Gorelov and Sergei Kolesnikov,[51][53] owned Usadba Divnomorskoye and sold the winery in 2012 to Pavel Titov, who is the president of the Abrau-Durso winery and son of businessman Boris Titov.[54] In January 2019, Gennady Timchenko and Vladimir Kolbin, who is the son of Pyotr, Petr or Peter Kolbin (Russian: Петр Колбин) who is a close childhood friend of Vladimir Putin, became beneficial owners of Divnomorskoye Estate through gaining ownership of the firm Lazurnaya Yagoda, which controls Usadba Divnomorskoye, by their firm Development of Agrarian Initiatives (RAI) (Russian: «Развитие аграрных инициатив» (РАИ)).[47][48][52][54] In August 2021, Riccardo Cotarella terminated his contract with Divnomorsky Estate.[7]
6. On 1 August 2024, Ilya Yashin was one of the sixteen detainees released from encarceration by Russia and Belarus during the 2024 Russian prisoner exchange.[55][56]
7. ORSIS is an anacronym for ORuzheyniye SIStemy (Russian: ОРУЖЕЙНЫЕ СИСТЕМЫ) or "Weapon Systems".[42]

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