Investigation: Putin's allies, Russia's military machine, and luxury villas in Dubai

Private beaches, million-dollar hot tubs, evenings of wine, whiskey, cigars and karaoke – or performances by famous Russian pop stars from the 1990s.

These are some of the features of an “ultra-luxury” villa complex in Dubai where Sergei Chemezov — the Western-sanctioned head of Russia’s massive state defense corporation Rostec and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin since they were KGB officers in communist East Germany — spends time with family, friends and business associates.

Although not the official owners of the villas, Chemezov and at least two heads of Rostec branches are neighbors in XXII Carat, a complex surrounded by multi-million dollar luxury villas on the Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island off the coast of the Persian Gulf, Systema, RFE/RL’s Russian research arm, has discovered. Chemezov, 72, became friends with Putin when they lived in the same apartment building in Dresden in the 1980s, when Chemezov was a general in the KGB and Putin a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet intelligence service. In 1996, when Putin became deputy chief of staff to President Boris Yeltsin, he appointed Chemezov head of the Kremlin’s department for foreign economic relations.

Rostec and its vast network of branches and subsidiaries produce many of the weapons and components that Russia uses in its war against Ukraine, which has lasted four years since Putin launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Chemezov has supported the invasion and repeated Putin's narrative in public statements, accusing the United States and its Western allies of provoking the war and saying they risk triggering a global war. Chemezov, CEO of Rostec since 2007, was hit with sanctions by the US, UK and EU after Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula.

Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby

Since 2015, he has visited the United Arab Emirates at least once a year, according to leaked border crossing records. A source familiar with Chemezov’s inner circle said the villa Chemezov uses was purchased several years before the complex was completed in late 2018, and that Chemezov and his wife “invested heavily in it, like a second home,” personally selecting the interior furnishings and closely supervising its construction.

The villa they built is the most expensive of the three types in the complex, the Sapphire, each with beach access and some with a $1 million crystal or quartz bathtub — pink or green. In 2020, the Sapphire villas cost $25.8 million, and the current asking price is about $31 million.

The other models are Emerald and Ruby; all have at least seven bedrooms, a hammam bathroom, a climate-controlled wine cellar, a landscaped garden and a swimming pool.

Hidden Ownership Structures?

Officially, the two-story, 2,170-square-meter house that Chemezov uses belongs to a company called Neve Limited, according to data from the American nonprofit data analytics and global research organization C4ADS. Systema was unable to find any information on Neve Limited, but C4ADS data shows an email address and phone number that, according to the leaked documents, match those of Natalya Agapova, a lawyer with long-term financial ties to Chemezov and his family.

Agapova declined to comment on the property in XXII Carat, and Rostec did not respond to a request for comment.

Houses one and two next to Chemezov's residence are slightly smaller homes occupied by the heads of two Rostec branches: Nikolai Kolesov, the director of Russian Helicopters, and Aleksandr Mikheyev, the director of Rosoboronexport, Russia's leading arms trading company.

The villa Mikheyev uses is registered in the name of his son Alexei, according to C4ADS data and Dubai land registry records. The formal owner of the house Kolesov uses is a local UAE company, Veles Electronics, which, according to a recent report by associates of the late Putin opponent and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny, is linked to the head of Russian Helicopters.

Alexei Mikheyev declined to comment. Rosoboronexport and Russian Helicopters did not respond to requests for comment.

Chemezov often spends time with Mikheyev and Kolesov when he is in Dubai, sources with knowledge of Rostec's leadership told Systema, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Their gatherings usually involve drinking alcohol, smoking cigars and singing karaoke, the sources said - although patriotic Russian pop stars such as Oleg Gazmanov and Grigory Leps, both under EU sanctions since 2022 for supporting the war, have sometimes sung.

Russian Roots

The sources of wealth that allow state-owned company bosses like Chemezov, Mikheyev and Kolesov to afford such properties are murky, although the latter also controls a lucrative network of private military companies.

Dubai, a haven for wealthy Russians, especially those hit by sanctions over the war in Ukraine, lies on the Persian Gulf – but XXII Carat’s roots run deep in Russia. The developer was a Yekaterinburg-based company called Forum Group, founded by Oleg Cherepanov, a prominent businessman known in the Urals city as Cherep – “Kafka.”

Cherepanov has lived in Dubai since 2014 and runs Forum Group Dubai. He has distanced himself from the Russia-based Forum Group, which is now 80 percent owned by Tamara Cherepanova, 77.

In Yekaterinburg, Forum Group built an ice rink for UGMK, a metals giant whose co-owner, US- and UK-sanctioned billionaire Andrei Bokarev, is said to be a friend of Chemezov and is suspected of owning 22-carat real estate.

The C4ADS database shows that two Ruby-class villas belonged to Diana Madzhitova, 29, who, according to leaked border crossing records, flew to the UAE with Bokarev more than 20 times over the past five years. One of these homes was apparently later purchased by relatives of an even more prominent billionaire: Alisher Usmanov.

Usmanov, a metals and media tycoon worth more than $16 billion according to Forbes, is subject to sanctions by the US, UK, EU and other countries.

Usmanov's niece, Gulnoz Kocharova, and her husband are the beneficial owners of two 22-carat Ruby-class villas, including the one registered in Madzhitova's name, according to Dubai land registry records.

"We categorically reject the insinuations and assumptions contained in your questions. There is no reason or obligation to provide more details," wrote Joachim Steinhoefel, Usmanov's lawyer, in a response to a Systema inquiry.

Kocharova hung up the phone when a reporter asked for comment, and she and her husband did not respond to requests sent via a messaging app. Bokarev and Madzhitova did not respond to attempts to contact them.

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-weapons-war-luxury-dubai-putin-crony