President Joe Biden’s administration spared Hunter Biden’s Russian billionaire business associates from a sanctions list recently issued by the State Department.
Late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s wife, Yelena Baturina — who dined with then-Vice President Biden in April 2014 — and oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov — who arranged at least two meetings with Hunter Biden while his father was vice president — again escaped the crushing sanctions from the Biden administration levied on the Russian elites as a result of the Ukrainian war.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated Friday that the United States added four more Russian oligarchs to its sanction list. Despite their qualifications of resembling fellow Russian oligarchs, Baturina and Yevtushenkov were kept off the list.
“[T]he United States is imposing sanctions on four prominent members of Russia’s financial elite who have served on the supervisory board of the Alfa Group Consortium, one of the largest financial and investment conglomerates in Russia,” Blinken wrote:
We are also imposing sanctions on the Russian Association of Employers the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a Russian business organization involved in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy. The organization has promoted import substitution and convened meetings to promote responses to sanctions.
The United States will continue to take all appropriate action to hold accountable those who enable and profit from Russia’s war against Ukraine.
According to the Atlantic Council, the U.S. has more than 2,700 sanctions against Russia. Since the Ukrainian war began last year, the Biden administration imposed approximately 1,500 new and 750 amended sanctions and export controls against Russia.
Russian oligarchs Baturina and Yevtushenkov, however, are somehow immune to sanctions.
In March, they were also left off a list of sanctioned Russians, as Breitbart News reported. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer why the Biden administration refused to sanction the Russian oligarchs.
Karine Jean-Pierre refuses to say why Biden has not sanctioned Russian billionaires Vladimir Yevtushenkov and Yelena Baturina — business associates of his son, Hunter — nor if Biden dined with Baturina in Georgetown while he was VP. pic.twitter.com/trzfN9ilMK
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 6, 2023
The Bidens’ history with the oligarchs is intricate. Baturina transferred $3.5 million to accounts controlled by Hunter Biden and Devon Archer in February 2014, weeks before Joe Biden dined with Baturina.
In the first presidential debate of 2020, Joe Biden falsely denied that Baturina had sent his son $3.5 million.
WATCH: Joe Biden Claims His Son Did Not Receive $3.5M from Wife of Former Moscow Mayor
USTV Pool
Yevtushenkov, the second oligarch excluded from the Biden administration’s sanction list, partnered with Baturina while searching for real estate investments in the United States. Worth an estimated $1.7 billion, Yevtushenkov’s business was the information technology and cell phone company sectors.
According to a New York Post source with firsthand knowledge of the relationship between Hunter Biden and Yevtushenkov, the Russian oligarch wanted to invest with Hunter Biden to be in good graces with the Biden family.
Baturina was a prominent investor in Devon Archer’s Rosemont Realty real estate firm, with an investment of about $120 million, he told House investigators. Hunter Biden was briefly associated with Archer’s real estate company as well, Archer said.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.