Ministers and oligarchs: The billionaires with ties to Russia’s government

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The Insider has obtained documents containing border-crossing data involving several top-level Russian government officials. Their various trips abroad shed light on which wealthy private citizens — and undisclosed relatives — can be counted among the inner circles of these influential public servants.

Mikhail Mishustin

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s most frequent travel companion is Levon Amdilyan — who accompanies Mishustin abroad even more frequently than does Mishustin’s own wife. Amdilyan has been a close acquaintance of the prime minister’s for many years — long before January 2020, when Mishustin was appointed to his current post.

Amdilyan, as The Insider discovered, is registered as a resident of the U.S. state of Ohio.

In Russia, he owns 50% of Taxcom, a company that benefited from the cash register reform overseen by Mishustin during his tenure as head of the Federal Tax Service (FNS) from 2010-2020. Until last year, Amdilyan controlled a 25% stake in Taxcom, but in November 2024, he doubled it.

Taxcom collects sales data from retailers and transmits it to the tax system. In 2023, the company’s revenue exceeded 2.5 billion rubles ($29.6 million), with a net profit of 43.65 million ($516,626). It has also secured 129 million rubles ($1.5 million) in government contracts, including for the provision of electronic document exchange services to Rosrybolovstvo through the Sprinter software system.

Another associate of Mishustin with foreign assets is Oleg Bulaev, who in 2013 purchased the Spanish winery Bodegas Altogrande. However, a year and a half ago, the Spanish legal entity under that name was liquidated. Mishustin traveled to Europe with Bulaev on multiple occasions.

But Mishustin’s closest business associate appears to be Alexander Udodov, who was once married to his sister, Natalia Stenina. Border crossing records suggest that even after the couple separated, Udodov remained on friendly terms with the prime minister. The two traveled together to Montenegro, France, Croatia, Munich, Dubai, Greece, and Italy.

As previously reported by The Insider, Udodov had ties to former Interior Ministry colonel Dmitry Zakharchenko, who became infamous after his arrest — in September 2016, authorities discovered $123 million in cash, along with gold bars, belonging to the one-time manager of the ministry’s anti-corruption division. According to case files, Zakharchenko helped Russian Railways orchestrate a scheme to underpay 16 billion rubles in taxes — this at a time when Mishustin was heading the Federal Tax Service.

Journalists have described Udodov as a “fixer” for various businessmen’s tax problems, alleging his involvement in VAT fraud schemes. An investigation by the late Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) reported that Udodov had gifted Mishustin’s family a house and expensive apartments. Meanwhile, Udodov himself reportedly acquired six apartments in New York and a luxury property in Dubai.

In February 2020, Czech journalists reported that Udodov holds Czech citizenship and owns a business in the country — Avrora Capital. He is known to have invested in Prague real estate and is not under EU sanctions.

In Russia, Udodov owns a major mushroom farming business — an industry that Mishustin exempted from taxes on profits. He also controls the microfinance company Pegas, a real estate development group, and the balneotherapy center Termy in Kubansky, a village in Russia’s Krasnodar region.

Mishustin prefers to travel abroad almost exclusively on business jets. As prime minister, he now has access to official aircraft from the Rossiya Special Flight Squadron, but before assuming his current post, he relied on the private jet of Andrey Bokarev. According to The Insider, Mishustin used the oligarch’s plane several times to fly to Verona, Paris, and Munich.

Bokarev is also linked to the prime minister through Mishustin’s sister and Udodov. Together with the oligarch, they co-founded the now-defunct Foundation for the Support of Education, Charity, and Sports. Bokarev’s generosity extended to Mishustin’s family as well — his business jet was also used by the official’s wife and sons.

Aleksey Overchuk

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Overchuk, Mishustin’s right-hand man, also flew on Bokarev’s business jet. Over the past two decades, Overchuk has held several key government positions. In 2004, he started out as a deputy head of the Federal Real Estate Cadastre Agency. In 2007, he became deputy head of the Federal Agency for Special Economic Zones. In 2010, he worked as an advisor in the Federal Tax Service (FNS) before moving up to the position of deputy head. In 2020, he followed Mishustin into the government.

Overchuk has also used private jets belonging to oligarchs. In November 2020, he flew to Astana to meet with the president of Kazakhstan aboard a plane owned by Vladimir Yevtushenkov.

Among other assets, Yevtushenko owns the telecommunications company MTS. Notably, shortly before his flight on the oligarch’s jet, Overchuk — who oversees all international relations in the Cabinet — announced an agreement to reduce roaming charges for calls between Russia and Belarus.

Back during his days as deputy head of the FNS, Overchuk also traveled on the private jet of R-Pharm pharmaceutical group founder Aleksey Repik. Interestingly, the same plane, bearing the registration number M-FINE, was used for flights to Croatia by Putin’s daughter, Katerina Tikhonova.

Alexander Novak

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak oversees the energy sector, including the electricity and fuel and energy industries, and has recently taken on responsibility for the economic sector as well. His portfolio also includes antitrust policy, competition development, tariff regulation, and state policies regarding free and special economic zones. Before becoming deputy prime minister in 2020, he spent eight years as Russia’s energy minister.

Border crossing records show that Novak has traveled multiple times with Leonid Mikhelson, a shareholder in Novatek and Sibur. He has used the oligarch’s private jet to fly to Paris, Tokyo, Madrid, Rabat (the Moroccan capital), and the Chinese cities of Beijing and Nanjing.

In government, Novak directly influences decisions affecting Mikhelson’s business interests. But Mikhelson is not the only major businessman whose company Novak has enjoyed while traveling. In 2021, he flew to Dubai and back on the same plane as Demyan Subbota, whose family owns and operates Corporation AK ESKM, a company involved in the construction of nearly all major nuclear energy projects in Russia. Notably, Novak serves on the supervisory board of the state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

Novak is also a Gazprom board member, a position he has likewise leveraged for personal travel. In 2022 and 2023, he used the state company’s business jets for trips to Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan. It’s worth noting that Gazprom aircraft are also used for trips to resort destinations by relatives of CEO Alexey Miller and by the company’s board chairman, longtime Putin associate Viktor Zubkov.

Dmitry Patrushev

A leak from the FSB’s border service allowed The Insider to confirm Dmitry Patrushev’s connection to Marina Artemyeva. The unofficial wife of the deputy prime minister is listed as the owner of assets worth nearly 3 billion rubles ($35.5 million).

Artemyeva and Patrushev have traveled together dozens of times. Between 2015 and 2023, they visited Armenia, Croatia, France, the UAE, Italy, Austria, Abkhazia, and the Maldives.

Patrushev was also accompanied on flights to Split and Rome by his friend Andrey Aleshkov, whose agribusiness flourished thanks to ties with the official overseeing the agricultural sector. With financial backing from Rosselkhozbank, which Patrushev once led, Aleshkov built the Prime Time complex.

Marat Khusnullin

Marat Khusnullin has served as deputy prime minister since 2020, having previously spent a decade overseeing construction policy in the Moscow mayor’s office. In the government, he remains responsible for the same sector. One of his frequent travel companions on trips abroad is Pavel Tio, one of Moscow’s and Russia’s largest developers. Tio’s company, Capital Group, has enjoyed government support under both of the capital’s longest-serving post-Soviet mayors: Yuri Luzhkov (1992-2010) and Sergey Sobyanin (2010-present). “I have known Marat Khusnullin for a long time and can say that no one has ever promoted the interests of the construction industry as boldly and energetically as he has,” Tio once said of the current deputy prime minister.

Tio may have appreciated Khusnullin’s “bold” and “energetic” presence during their shared travels to the West. They flew together multiple times to Nice and Paris, as well as to China, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

A leak from the border service also revealed that Khusnullin staged a divorce from his wife, who had been ranked among the wealthiest spouses of Russian government officials. They officially dissolved their marriage in 2018, after which his officially ex-wife, Lilia Khusnullina, even changed her last name to Kharisova. However, as The Insider noted, they continued traveling together on vacations — to Switzerland, Dubai, and Thailand.

Alexander Kurenkov

Alexander Kurenkov has led the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS) since 2022. He is better known as a former adjutant to Vladimir Putin.

Before assuming his current role, Kurenkov traveled several times to Germany and Dubai with businessman Visa Mizaev. In 2023, Mizaev became embroiled in an espionage scandal. According to Der Spiegel, he acted as a link between the FSB and businessman Artur Eller.

Mizaev’s wife, Olga Belyavtseva, is one of the richest women in Russia. Her main asset is AO Progress, the company behind the FrutoNyanya baby food brand. Her business partners include the family of the late State Duma deputy Nikolai Bortsov of the ruling United Russia party.

Sergey Lavrov

It was previously known that relatives of the foreign minister used Oleg Deripaska’s private jets. Now it can be confirmed that Sergey Lavrov himself did as well. He flew to Germany on the business jet with the tail number M-ALAY, accompanied by his mistress, Svetlana Polyakova, and his unofficial mother-in-law.

The Insider was also able to verify claims from a 2021 ACF investigation that alleged Lavrov had spent a week and a half in Turkey that summer aboard a luxury yacht. Video messages featuring Lavrov, which were published during that time, had actually been prerecorded to cover up his absence from work. Moreover, it has now been revealed that Lavrov was accompanied on that trip by Lyubov Kabaeva — the de facto mother-in-law of Vladimir Putin.

Prominent businessmen were also present. In Turkey, as well as on several other occasions, Lavrov was joined by Vitaly Mashchitsky, who is closely linked to Rostec. Mashchitsky also owns a major aluminum business in Romania.

Anton Siluanov

A recent data leak has confirmed details from The Insider’s investigation into Olga Khromchenko, the secret wife of Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. It is now clear that Siluanov’s complicated affair — intertwined with corruption and involving the owner of a toll road construction business — began no later than 2017. Since then, Siluanov and Khromchenko have been inseparable, traveling together to Seoul, Paris, Venice, Rome, Sion, Geneva, and even Vietnam.

In 2021, Siluanov flew to Venice aboard a Bombardier Global jet belonging to coal magnate Albert Avdolyan. The trip was an official one — the finance minister was attending the Tax Policy and Climate Change symposium. However, he brought along his unofficial wife. A similar approach was taken by the head of the State Duma’s Budget Committee, Andrey Makarov, who was accompanied by Natalia Makarova, despite their technically dissolved marriage.