By The Moscow Times | Created at 2026-09-17 15:30:17 | Updated at 2026-09-17 16:33:04
1 hour ago
Marat Kabaev, the father of former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, has acquired a stake in a major logistics company working on Russian state oil giant Rosneft’s flagship Arctic project, the investigative outlet Sistema reported.
Kabaev bought a 25% stake in Taimyr Invest in the spring of 2026, according to the investigation. His daughter has widely been described in media reports as President Vladimir Putin’s partner and the mother of his youngest children, though neither Putin nor Kabaeva has publicly confirmed the relationship.
The acquisition offers a glimpse into who stands to benefit from Vostok Oil, a vast development that Rosneft has said will require trillions of rubles in investment and tap billions of metric tons of oil reserves in Russia’s Far North.
Taimyr Invest, which provides logistics services for Vostok Oil, faced major tax claims in 2024. Court documents said the company had evaded taxes through shell companies.
Following two audits, tax authorities ordered the company to pay more than 3 billion rubles ($35.4 million) in additional taxes and about 800 million rubles ($9.4 million) in fines.
Kabaev became a co-owner after the tax claims were issued. He said the decision followed a conversation with Nikolai Patrushev, a former head of Russia’s Federal Security Service and an aide to Putin, according to Sistema.
Kabaev said he had invested in the company to help his partners build a strong and socially responsible business.
Taimyr Invest’s revenue rose to 55.3 billion rubles ($652.5 million) in 2024 from 13.2 billion rubles ($155.8 million) the previous year, while net profit reached 1.6 billion rubles ($18.9 million), according to corporate data cited by RBC.
Media reports have linked Sinarastroikomplekt to billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky and identified it as a Rosneft contractor, though Sistema said it could not independently confirm that information in publicly available records. The outlet nevertheless calculated that the company received contracts worth nearly 900 billion rubles ($10.6 billion) from Vostok Oil between June 2021 and April 2026, making it the project’s largest private contractor.
Rosneft launched Vostok Oil in early September and began shipping its first crude through the newly built Bukhta Sever terminal. The company also constructed a 790-kilometer (491-mile) pipeline for the project.
Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin estimated in 2023 that Vostok Oil would require about 12 trillion rubles ($141.6 billion) in investment. He put its resource base at 6.5 billion metric tons of oil and 10 trillion cubic meters of gas.
This article was translated with the help of artificial intelligence and was reviewed by a Moscow Times editor before publication. Learn more about our newsroom's AI policy here.
Read this article in Russian at The Moscow Times' Russian service.
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