A billionaireʼs passport was taken from his own plane. Within a year, his gold was sold to Kadyrovʼs man at a 42% discount
On July 5, 2025, a $50 million “Bombardier” — the private jet of Russian oligarch Konstantin Strukov — was parked on the runway of Chelyabinsk Airport. The owner of “Yuzhuralzolot” (one of the largest gold mining companies in Russia) was already sitting in the cabin. The plane was supposed to fly to Turkey in a few minutes.
According to an interlocutor of Le Monde investigators, Strukov had no intention of returning to Russia. But at the last moment, “Rosaviatsia” canceled the flight — a message was received that the plane had been arrested. Bailiffs boarded the plane and took Strukovʼs passport.
At that time, the migration service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs had already canceled the document, and the court forbade the businessman from leaving the country.
Strukov publicly insisted that he was not going to flee, his employees tried to give him an alibi, saying that he worked in the Moscow office. At the same time, footage published by Russian media literally captured the billionaire in the cabin of the plane next to the bailiffs.
On board a "Bombardier" jet. Bailiffs came to collect Konstantin Strukovʼs passport right on the plane, July 5, 2025. Konstantin Strukov was once one of the richest people in Russia; in early 2025, Forbes estimated his fortune at $1.9 billion.
kommersant / Telegram
Strukov was the deputy chairman of the Chelyabinsk parliament and the face of the local United Russia party. The UK added him to the sanctions list as the head of a company that supports the Russian state. Such a solid track record did not help Strukov.
Three days before the unsuccessful flight, security forces searched the offices of “Yuzhuralzolot” and related companies in a case of violation of environmental standards and industrial safety. The Prosecutor Generalʼs Office (PGO) demanded that the state transfer shares of “Yuzhuralzolot”, 100% of its management company and shares in nine more of his businesses — from the “Vinogradar” and “VK Satera” wineries to the “Ecomodul” agro-complex and the
“Korkinsky Excavator” and “Wagon Repair Plant”.
Strukov was accused of combining business with parliamentary activities, recording assets in the names of relatives, and transferring profits to "unfriendly" countries. His daughter lived in Switzerland, and the family had businesses in Serbia and Montenegro — a typical biography of the Russian elite suddenly turned into a list of aggravating circumstances.
On July 11, six days after the plane was seized, the court handed over 67.2% of “Yuzhuralzolot” to the state. In June 2026, this package and related assets were put up for auction with a starting price of 162 billion rubles — about $2.2 billion.
After several unsuccessful attempts, a buyer was found. Ruslan Baysarovʼs company paid 93.2 billion rubles (about $1.27 billion), and itʼs 42% less than the initial estimate. Baysarov is considered the man of Chechnyaʼs leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
This is how the Russian conveyor belt has worked in recent years: the prosecutorʼs office finds violations, the court seizes the asset, and the state sells it to the right people.
Vadim Moshkovich listened to Putin in the Kremlin on February 24. Three years later, he was sitting in a cage
On the day of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin gathered the largest Russian businessmen in the Kremlin. He had just started the war, the West was preparing sanctions, and the invited oligarchs were explained — the state had made a decision, now they needed help.
Among those present was Vadim Moshkovich — a former senator from the Belgorod region and the founder of “Rusagro” — an agricultural giant and Russiaʼs largest producer of sugar, pork, and sunflower oil. Moshkovich had never opposed the war.
On March 10, 2024, the European Union imposed personal sanctions against him, and Rusagro announced his withdrawal from the management bodies, but Moshkovich retained full control of the company.
In early 2025, the company was forcibly transferred from Cyprus to Russian jurisdiction. Formally, this looked like fulfilling Putinʼs long-standing requirement: to earn money, keep assets, and register companies within the country.
On March 26, 2025, Moshkovich was detained. He was accused of embezzling 30 billion rubles (approximately $360 million) during a 2018 deal with oil producer “Solar Products”, and later charged with bribery. Moshkovich himself pleaded not guilty.
In May 2026, the court transferred 68% of “Rusagro”, which belonged to Moshkovich, his wife, other relatives, and the former director, to the state. The package was valued at 67 billion rubles (approximately $890 million).
At the time of publication, Moshkovich is in pretrial detention, the trial is ongoing, and he faces up to ten years in prison. The man who sat at the same table with Putin on the first day of the invasion now looks at photographers from a glass cage in a Moscow courthouse, holding David Eaglemanʼs book "The Brain" and a bottle of water.
Meshchansky District Court of Moscow. Vadim Moshkovich in a glass cage, March 27, 2025.
Суды общей юрисдикции города Москвы / Telegram
Vadim Moshkovich’s story surprised even Elizabeth Schimpfessl, the author of the book “Rich Russians” and a researcher of the Russian oligarchy. Moshkovich did not seem like a person who could cause problems for the Kremlin, Schimpfessl says in a conversation with Babel.
The problem is probably in the asset itself: during the war, agriculture became so important that the authorities no longer had enough cooperation with a loyal owner. They needed direct control.
Traber lived under Putinʼs protection for 30 years. Then he spent 72 days in pre-trial detention, lost four companies — and was released
Ilya Traber from St. Petersburg, nicknamed the Antiquarian, until recently seemed untouchable. In the 1990s, he shared St. Petersburg ports with the Tambov gang, and in May 1996, Vice Mayor Putin signed an order that gave the “Pulkovo” airport fuel complex to the Traber-related company Soveks.
Spain was looking for Traber in a money laundering case involving the Tambov-Malyshev gang, and in the meantime, he was a guest at Putinʼs birthday parties at least twice — in 2004 and 2016.
In June 2026, Traber was unexpectedly arrested in the murder of his former business partner Alexander Petrov. On October 24, 2020, a sniper shot Petrov as he was leaving a sauna at his estate near Vyborg. The investigation lasted more than five years.
Earlier this summer, investigators said that Traberʼs former driver named him as one of the customers, and he went to pre-trial detention. He spent 72 days there. During that time, he withdrew from four strategic companies and lost his stake in Primorsky UPK, a deep-sea terminal project near Primorsky that would handle up to 70 million tons of cargo per year.
Its estimated value of 348 billion rubles is about $4.1 billion. On the evening of August 27, Traber was released from the pre-trial detention center due to his health, and on August 31, the case against him was closed, the investigation stated that the businessman was not involved in the crime.
Ilya Traber has long been considered a close associate of Putin. Basmanny District Court, Moscow, June 17, 2026.
Суды общей юрисдикции города Москвы / Telegram
The owners of “Makfa” offered to give a billion to the war every year. The company was taken away anyway
Sometimes businessmen themselves name the price they are willing to pay for the right to remain owners. In March 2024, the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office began the nationalization of “Makfa”, Russiaʼs largest pasta manufacturer, and 26 related companies.
Their beneficiaries were accused of running a business while simultaneously working in government, and therefore the assets had a "corrupt origin". The group included flour, cereal, bread, and agricultural producers, including “Pershy Khlibokombinat”, “Smak”, “Nova Pyatirichka”, “Dolgovske”, “Chelyabinskoblgaz”, “Arkom”, and “Kalanchatsky Bread Products Combine”.
The agency estimated their total value at 46 billion rubles (about $505 million). Formally, the shares were registered mainly in the names of relatives, but the prosecutorʼs office insisted that the ultimate beneficiaries and actual owners remained former Chelyabinsk governor Mikhail Yuryevich and former State Duma deputy Vadim Belousov.
Yuryevich lives in London, Belousov disappeared in 2022, his whereabouts are currently unknown, and they are both wanted in Russia.
So that the owners of “Makfa” did not have time to sell or rewrite the property before the court decision, their accounts and assets were seized, the seizure limit was set at a fantastic 100 trillion rubles, or approximately $1.1 trillion.
This was more than 2000 times higher than the 46 billion rubles at which the prosecutorʼs office estimated their entire business. But the business was even more than all the rubles in the Russian economy — at that time there were 99.4 trillion of them.
No one demanded that the owners be charged 100 trillion — this figure allowed the bailiffs to block any property found within its limits. At the time, lawyers assumed that they simply entered the largest amount allowed by the program into the documents.
On the eve of the courtʼs decision, the owners offered the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office and “Rosmayno” a settlement agreement. They were ready to pay the state 10 billion rubles — about $110 million, buy back part of their own companyʼs shares, and continue to transfer another billion rubles — about $11 million — annually for "charitable purposes related to the special military operation".
The state did not agree. On May 8, the court seized “Makfa” and related assets, and two months later the “Rosselkhozbank” structure took over their management. Later, the bank became the owner of “Makfa”, the “Kuban-Vino” wine producer, the “Ariant” agroholding with vineyards and pig farms, and other food enterprises.
“Rosselkhozbank” is formally state-owned, but researchers from “Cedar” and “Novaya Gazeta Evropa” attribute it to the sphere of influence of the Patrushev family: Dmitry Patrushev, the son of the former Secretary of the Security Council and now Putinʼs aide Nikolai Patrushev, headed this bank in 2010-2018, and is now the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
The proposal from the former owners of "Makfa" to pay a tax on war every year fits perfectly into the usual model for Russian oligarchs — to spend part of their wealth to protect the rest. This is how Elizabeth Schimpfessl explains their behavior.
According to her, there is no single psychological portrait of a Russian oligarch, but in interviews with them, the conviction of oneʼs own exclusivity and the constant fear that someone will take away what has been acquired repeatedly appeared.
She refers to the definition of political scientist Jeffrey Winters — an oligarch is a very rich person who spends part of his resources to protect the rest. In Putinʼs Russia, such an insurance premium is donations to the so-called new territories, projects needed by the Kremlin, and demonstrative loyalty. After a certain level of wealth, the main thing in life becomes not comfort, but increasing money and the fear of losing it.
Therefore, even those who could leave and live in the West with some of their capital continue to play by the rules of a system that can rob them at any moment.
How many private assets has the Russian state already seized? There is no exact figure, and it benefits the Kremlin
Russia does not have a single register of nationalized property. Some cases are heard in private, the value of enterprises is calculated using different methods, and a formal change of owner does not always mean that control has actually passed to him. Therefore, assessments vary.
Moscow-based corporate law firm NSP estimated that the state seized 102 private assets worth 3.9 trillion rubles (about $50 billion) between February 2022 and June 2025. This year’s study by Cedar, an independent Russian Data and Research Center, puts the total assets seized by the state at 4.99 trillion rubles (about $59 billion).
«Babel'»
At the same time, the Kremlin has expanded its toolkit. Most often, the prosecutorʼs office finds the "corruption origin" of a business — 67 out of more than 170 lawsuits. In other cases, it reviews privatization after thirty years, declares the enterprise strategic, finds the owner a foreign passport, or accuses him of financing Ukraine.
In 60% of lawsuits for the seizure of assets, no criminal cases were initiated against the former owners. The majority prefer to give up the property voluntarily and not contact the security forces.
From August 2026, sometimes even a court order is not needed to seize assets for the benefit of the state. On August 24, Putin signed a decree (which immediately came into force) that allows the state to take over management of critical infrastructure if the owner, in the opinion of the authorities, has not sufficiently protected it from Ukrainian drones or is too slow to restore it after a strike.
The definition of “critical infrastructure” includes energy, industry, transport, logistics, communications, and any other facility important for “economic stability”. That is, any big business.
There are 25 large family dynasties in Russian power. And confiscated companies go to the old Putin elite
Unlike the 1990s, the current redistribution of property is not creating a generation of new oligarchs. The most valuable assets are mostly going to large state corporations and the old Putin elite.
“Novaya Gazeta Evropa” separately investigated the 50 largest nationalized companies that still officially remained in “Rosmayno”. At least eleven of them were headed by people from Arkady Rotenbergʼs structures, and ten more were managers associated with Dmitry Patrushev.
The assets are not distributed randomly, but by industry.
«Babel'»
Sometimes an asset goes to a formally private new favorite. For example, the state sold Russia’s largest car dealer “Rolf” for 34.8 billion rubles — about $400 million — to the company of Umar Kremlyov (the head of the International Boxing Association). He is said to be a friend and business partner of Alexei Rubezhny, the head of Putin’s security service.
The nationalized Moscow “Domodedovo” Airport was put up for sale in January 2026 for 132.3 billion rubles (approximately $1.7 billion). The first bid failed, and in the second bid, the airport was bought for the minimum permitted 66.13 billion rubles (approximately $870 million) by “Perspektiva” (a subsidiary of “Sheremetyevo”).
The “Sheremetyevo” Airport itself is 66.06% owned by the “Sheremetyevo Holding”. Before the holding company was re-registered from Cyprus in 2022, Arkady Rotenberg owned 34.8% of it, and a trust in the interests of the families of his long-time partners Alexander Ponomarenko and Alexander Skorobogatko owned 65.2%.
All these figures are just the most visible tip of the latest redistribution of property and influence in Russia. The media outlet "Project" checked the biographies of 1,329 top Russian officials. In 1012 of them — that is, in 3 out of 4 — relatives were found in government, state-owned companies or businesses related to the state.
Separately, the journalists identified the 25 most extensive "power clans" — in each of them at least ten relatives hold or have held such positions. The record in the clan of Ramzan Kadyrov is 96 people. Putin has 27, the head of “Rostec” Sergei Chemezov has 16, and Nikolai Patrushev has 15.
Canned goods and concrete for the army, apartments for the SVO participants. How confiscated property works for the war
In September 2025, during state veterinary control in the dining room of military unit No. 81521 in Orekhovo-Zuyevo (near Moscow), samples of beef stew "Family Budget" were taken. They were checked to find out whether the actual composition of the product corresponds to that indicated on the label.
The inspection documents were published by the “All Exclusive” investigative project. These canned goods were produced by "Oryolproduct" (a plant of the “Glavproduct” holding, which was founded in 1999 by Leonid Smirnov — a Russian who moved to the United States and received an American passport).
His enterprises produced canned goods and condensed milk, but, according to Reuters, the holding did not supply products to the Russian army before the transfer to state management.
The Ural Chemical and Technological College of Perm Krai. Students work in an educational laboratory equipped with the support of "Metafrax Chemicals", the main employer-partner of the college. The "Metafrax Chemicals" plant is now owned by "Roschem", a company associated with the Rotenberg family.
Метафракс Кемикалс / vk.ru
In October 2024, Smirnov was accused of taking money abroad, and his holding company was transferred to the management of “Rosmayno” by Putinʼs decree. After that, a new director was appointed there, associated with the “Druzhba Narodiv” company, which is a supplier to the “Rosgvardia” and the Ministry of Defense.
In February 2026, the “Glavproduct” holding company was transferred to the structures of “Rosselkhozbank”, which is controlled by Dmitry Patrushev.
In September 2025, at the request of the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office of Russia, a Moscow court seized “Vostokcement” (a group of companies that produce cement and concrete) from the family of the former mayor of Vladivostok Igor Pushkarev.
In August 2026, Putin signed a decree on the transfer of shares to the holding company “Military Construction Company”. Itʼs a state-owned company subordinate to the Ministry of Defense that is engaged in the repair and construction of military facilities.
Another state-owned company “Rostec” in 2024 received a controlling stake in the Iset plant, which specializes in the manufacture of electrical connectors, which are used, among other things, in military equipment.
Moreover, the plant was confiscated from former State Duma deputy Malik Gaisin, even though when the plant was in his ownership, he already had signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense. But, apparently, they were not enough. As the new management reported, the company increased production by 10% over the year.
In September 2023, at the request of the Russian Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, a court seized “Metafrax Chemicals” from Seyfeddin Rustamov (a billionaire who was then among the hundred richest people in Russia).
“Metafrax” is a chemical giant that produces methanol, formalin, and urotropin — components for the production of explosives. In October 2024, the state-owned stake in “Metafrax” was purchased by “Roskhim” (a company from the orbit of the Rotenberg family). “Metafrax” is a supplier of raw materials for the Sverdlov Plant (a state-owned enterprise that produces explosives for the Russian army).
And after the state gained control over the business of the former owners of “Makfa”, at the request of the Ministry of Defense, the court ruled to transfer to the state another 63 apartments of Mikhail Yuryevich, Vadim Belousov and their relatives.
The department stated that these apartments will be provided to the military and participants of the so-called “SVO”.
Confiscations alone wonʼt compensate Putin for the long war. But the Kremlin needs more than just money
Putting the stories above together, the Kremlin benefits in four ways. The first is money from the sale of confiscated assets. The second is profits from enterprises that remain with the state or are transferred to a close clan.
The third is “voluntary” payments from those who are afraid of being next. In March 2026, at a closed meeting between Putin and businessmen, senator and billionaire Suleiman Kerimov himself proposed giving the state 100 billion rubles (about $1.2 billion).
The Kremlin called it a spontaneous idea from Kerimov himself.
National Center "Russia". Putin speaks to the largest Russian businessmen at the congress of the RSPP. By that time, the oligarchs themselves were already offering the Kremlin billions in "voluntary" contributions, Moscow, March 26, 2026.
The fourth and main benefit is obedience. In order not to lose business, entrepreneurs use their own money to protect factories and warehouses from drones, help regions, fulfill government orders, return money to Russia, and remain silent even when their ports, mines, factories, agricultural holdings, and banks are transferred to other people.
Elizabeth Schimpfessl calls this system “21st-century authoritarianism”. Unlike the dictatorships of the past, here the rules are deliberately left vague: businessmen do not know what they will be punished for tomorrow, so they constantly guess what step the Kremlin will consider the right one.
Their resistance boils down to attempts to save themselves alone — to negotiate, withdraw part of their assets, or do everything so that this time they are not the ones who come for them. Most of these people have never been able to earn such money outside of Russia, and access to Russian assets has always been opened to them by the regime.
Therefore, a common coalition against the Kremlin does not arise — everyone depends on it and at the same time is afraid of being next.