Trump Has Thwarted Putin's Puppet Plans

The U.S. has banned a company founded by Putin's friend from acquiring Lukoil's foreign assets.

The United States has refused to grant international oil trader Gunvor permission to buy the overseas assets of Russia's largest private oil and gas company Lukoil. "President [Donald] Trump has made it clear that the war [in Ukraine] must end immediately. As long as [Russian President Vladimir] Putin continues his senseless killings, the Kremlin's puppet, Gunvor, will never be granted a license to operate and profit," the U.S. Treasury Department announced.

About an hour later, Gunvor said it was withdrawing its offer to buy Lukoil's foreign assets. Company representatives called the U.S. Finance Ministry's statement "fundamentally misinforming and false" because "Gunvor has always been open and transparent about its owners and business and has been actively distancing itself from Russia for more than a decade, halting trade under sanctions, selling off Russian assets and publicly condemning the war in Ukraine."

The U.S. imposed sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies - Rosneft and Lukoil and their subsidiaries - on October 22. A week later, oil trader Gunvor, which was founded in 1997 by Swedish businessman Thorbjorn Tornqvist and billionaire Gennady Timchenko, close to the Russian president, announced that it was going to buy Lukoil's foreign assets. It was about dozens of oil production, fuel refining and retailing companies in 11 countries with a total value of about $21 billion. However, to complete the deal, Gunvor needed to get approval from the U.S. Treasury Department.

With this background, according to Bloomberg sources, the U.S. decided to investigate the history of the oil trader's ties with Putin. The agency noted that if the company acquires Lukoil's foreign assets, it will turn out that the two largest deals in the life of Gunvor co-founder Tornqvist will be concluded because of US sanctions. So, after the restrictions were imposed against Moscow in 2014, billionaire Timchenko sold his stake in the company. Then in the explanation to the sanctions, the U.S. Ministry of Finance noted that the businessman's activities in the energy sector are "directly related to Putin," and the Russian President himself "has investments in Gunvor, and he may have access to the company's funds."

Tornqvist stated that in the case of the sale of Lukoil's foreign assets to the oil trader, they will no longer return to the Russian company. He emphasized that the US authorities should have no objections to the deal as it would not benefit Russia. Earlier, Washington set a deadline for the sale of Lukoil's foreign assets until November 21. According to Bloomberg, major energy companies had previously contacted Lukoil representatives and were interested in buying its assets, but were turned down because of Gunvor's offer.

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