The company "Delta," owned by billionaire Gennady Timchenko, who is close to Vladimir Putin, may have financed the acquisition of nearly 35% of the shares of the Russian marketplace Ozon. This is the conclusion reached by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) after analyzing the company's financial statements and other documents. The Moscow Times reports this, UNN writes.
Details
The issue concerns a 34.95% stake in Ozon that previously belonged to the Baring Vostok investment fund. After the fund exited the Russian market, businessman Alexander Chachava's entities began acquiring its stake.
According to the FBK investigation, in 2024, the company "Stratosphere," linked to Chachava, received a loan of 51.23 billion rubles from the company "Optima." In turn, "Optima" received these funds as an interest-free loan from Gennady Timchenko's "Delta."
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Thus, the investigators traced a chain of financing from entities linked to Timchenko to the acquisition of Ozon shares. The FBK considers Chachava himself a nominal owner of the stake, since before the start of Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine, he had not been involved in similarly large-scale deals.
FBK considers the deal linked to Putin
The investigators also pointed to links between the management of "Optima" and people in the Russian president's circle. In particular, the company's general director, Darya Brylakova, previously worked for entities linked to Mikhail Shelomov, who is described as a relative of Putin, as well as at a company controlled by businessman Yuri Kovalchuk.
The FBK concluded that the acquisition of the stake in Ozon may have been carried out in the interests of Olodymyr Puptin and called on the European Union to impose sanctions against people and companies linked to the marketplace.
Gennady Timchenko is considered one of the Russian billionaires closest to Putin. After the annexation of Crimea, the Russian leader publicly called him his friend and stated that the businessman had suffered unjustly from Western sanctions.