Putin's Oldest Ally Throws Him Under the Bus

Russian billionaire Gennady Timchenko threw his longtime ally Vladimir Putin under the bus when he made an appeal to the European Union's second-highest court on Wednesday, in which he asked that European sanctions that were imposed on him over the war in Ukraine be lifted.

As part of a legal challenge to the EU sanctions, Timchenko's lawyer, Stéphane Bonifassi told the EU's General Court that his client's ties to the Russian president do not mean that Timchenko is an ally of Putin in the war in Ukraine, Bloomberg reported.

Timchenko and Putin have been close friends since at least the early 1990s. In 1991, when Putin was head of St. Petersburg's foreign relations committee, he gave Timchenko an oil export license. Timchenko later co-founded the oil trading firm, Gunvor. He sold his stake in the company to chief executive Torbjorn Tornqvist in March 2014.

"Even though it's true that Gennady Timchenko has known Mr. Putin for a long time, to call him a confidant is something that we contest, as this statement contains a sort of allegation," Bonifassi said.

Timchenko was placed on the European Union's sanctions list in February 2022—the same month that Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A travel ban was imposed on him and he was hit with asset freezes. He was also sanctioned by the Biden administration in March 2022.

The EU at the time noted his shareholding in Bank Rossiya, "the personal bank of Senior Officials of the Russian Federation."

"We're told all the time, well it's a bank for senior Russian officials, but there's no proof given of that," Bonifassi said.

Timchenko told the Russian edition of Forbes in 2012 that he and Putin had "known each other for many years" and that they "meet periodically."

"Now it is connected mainly with sports and with the work of the Russian Geographical Society," he said.

Timchenko said at the time that he had "great respect" for the Russian president.

"It seems to me that this is the leader that Russia needs today. Vladimir Vladimirovich is a very deep, balanced person. He knows how to listen," he said. "You can say whatever you want, but this is the man who really did a lot for Russia. Without him, we would not have had a country for a long time, and we would have disintegrated."

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

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