Russian Oligarchs

Explosive Biography Of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich [ 2023]

Who Is Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich ?

Profile of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich.

CategoryDomestic Politically Exposed Person
Date of birthMay 2, 1956
Place of birthMoscow
Under sanctionsUkraine 
CitizenRussian Federation , Cyprus 
Last positionCouncil of the Russia Federation, senator

Biography Of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich

Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich was born on 2 May 1956 in Moscow. In 1979, he graduated from the chemical, petrochemical and criogenic machines and equipment engineering department of the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering with a specialization in mechanical engineering.

Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich Name In Different Languages

In Different Languages

LanguageName
EnglishLeonid Lebedev
RussianЛебедев Леонид Леонидович
Dutch; FlemishLeonid Leonidovitsj Lebedev
GermanLeonid Leonidowitsch Lebedew
CzechLeonid Lebeděv
Arabicليونيد ليبيديف
Hebrewלאוניד לבדב
Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich Name In Different Languages

Career Of Leonid Lebedev

Leonid Lebedev is a successful businessman, media owner, and politician. He is also a supporter of independent journalism and a philanthropist.

Early Career

  • Expert at the USSR Chamber of Trade and Industry
  • Held different positions at Mosconcert and its industrial facilities

Business Career

  • President of the Soviet-American joint venture Sintez International (1988-1990)
  • Chairman of the board of directors of Sintez Corporation (since 1990)
  • Chairman of the Council of JSCB Obyedinenny gorodskoy bank (since 1990)
  • Chairman of the board of directors of JSCB Investitsionnaya bankovskaya korporatsiya (1993-1996)
  • Chairman of CJSC Corporation Sintez (since 1995)
  • Acquired a 43% stake in TGK-2 (2008)

Political Career

  • Elected representative of the State Council of the Chuvashian Republic in the Federation Council of Russia (2002)
  • Joined United Russia (2006)
  • Member of the Interim Commission for the analysis of law enforcement practice in the sphere of legislation of Russian Federation on the property (2005)
  • Resigned as member of the Federation Council (2015)

Other Notable Achievements

  • Created the production company Red Arrow with Valeriy Todorovskiy and Vadim Goryainov (2005)
  • Red Arrow has released seven films over the next three years, including the musical comedy Stilyagi

Family Of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich

Lebedev is widowed and has two daughters. The elder daughter Julia, a graduate of the University of Southern California and who lives in the USA, built a successful career as a film producer under her film production company Code Red Productions. Julia was born in Los Angeles and raised between Moscow and the U.S. Julia’s very first film was a success, because Orlando Bloom played the main role. 

Yana And Julia - Daughters of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich
Yana And Julia – Daughters of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich

Julia Lebedev and her husband, corporate litigation attorney Jonathan Moss, own a multimillion-dollar house in Los Feliz, where nearby neighbors include Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, will.i.am and Ashley Benson.

His second daughter, Yana, lives in Moscow and is the founder of an online fashion guide. Yana Lebedeva was born May 17, 1987. She owns several successful projects, prefers to stay out of news for the same.

Leonid Lebedev’s Controversial Life and Career

In 1992, following Latvia’s attainment of complete independence and the introduction of customs barriers, Lebedev and his business associate Mark Garber transferred ownership of Sintez Records to the musician Alexander Kutikov. In turn, the holding company shifted its focus towards trading various commodities, including oil, timber, and pipelines.

Sintez established Negusneft, a company which was granted the rights for field development in the small Varyngsky deposit located in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District. Additionally, they acquired a 10 percent stake in Nizhnevartovskgas, a 15 percent interest in Rosneft-Sakhalinmorneftegas, and a 15 percent share in the Yaroslavsky oil refinery plant.

According to Lebedev, by the late 1990s, Sintez had achieved an annual turnover of 15 million tons of gasoline, heating oil, and diesel fuel. During this period, Sintez was overseen not only by Lebedev but also by two individuals: Mark Garber, a specialist in addiction medicine, and Alexander Zhukov, the former assistant to the director of the Odessa picture studio. Zhukov, who was responsible for overseeing Sintez’s production export and shipping operations in Ukrainian ports, is notable for being the father of Daria Zhukova, Roman Abramovich’s girlfriend.

Leonid Lebedev Involved In illegal Arms Trafficking to Yugoslavia

Large illegal arms shipments of arms contunued in early 1990s from Bulgaria, Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia . Such secret and illegal trade allowed some individuals to become immensely wealthy.

ships loaded with weapons secretly arrived in the Slovene port of Koper, in violation of the U.N. embargo banning the delivery of arms to the region. The ships were unloaded and the cargo was quickly forwarded to battlefields in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Those logistic operations were conducted by military and civilian secret services in all three countries. Italian, Albanian and Russian mafia also participated in some illegal trades.

In 1994, the NATO fleet in the Adriatic intercepted and brought to a halt the Jadran Express, the final ship among eight involved in this operation. This interception subsequently led to a trial in the Italian city of Turin. The individuals facing trial included the Greek Arms dealer Konstantin Dafermos, Dmitri Streshinsky, Russian Oligarchs Alexander Zhukov and Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich, British banker Mark Garber, and Yevgeny Marchuk, a former prime minister of Ukraine who had also previously served as the head of the country’s secret police.

An Italian officer with grenades, carried in the "Jadran Express"
An Italian officer with grenades, carried in the “Jadran Express”

Ex-KGB officials and other individuals were also indicted. Prosecutors in Turin alleged that Konstantin Dafermos was the mastermind behind the operation, which employed counterfeit documents to indicate that the arms were destined for Africa rather than the Balkans.

Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich Involved In illegal Arms Trafficking to Yugoslavia
Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich Involved In illegal Arms Trafficking to Yugoslavia

In 2002-2003 Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich appeared in the court of Italian city Turin in this illegal arms smuggling case. Later, Lebedyev has refused to participate in the trial.

In March 2002, Dmitry Streshinsky, an official representing Sintez, was the sole individual implicated in this case to receive a conviction from the Turin court. He was subject to a fine and handed a suspended prison sentence of one year and eleven months. On January 16, 2003, the remaining suspects in this case, including Lebedev, Kuzma Medanich, Mark Garber, Alexander Zhukov, Andrey Vazhnik, and Anatoliy Fedorenko, were acquitted of criminal charges due to a lack of evidence. This outcome resulted from the fact that Italian law does not classify arms trafficking outside of Italy as a criminal offense.

Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich Obtaining Cypriot Citizenship

The firm ” Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners LLC ” , founded by the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades appeared in the Pandora Papers, where the broker of the Panamanian offshore company Alcogal accused it of concealing the assets of dubious origin of Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich.

It is believed that Nicos Chr. Anastasiades and Partners LLC provided counsel to Russian citizens in 2011 regarding the legal yet contentious gold passport program. This initiative allowed affluent individuals to secure the privilege of residing and working within the European Union. It’s worth mentioning that Lebedev Leonid Leonidovich was granted citizenship under this program during the same year.

Limassol, a seaside resort popular with wealthy Russians, where Leonid Lebedev bought a villa as part of his ‘golden passport’ deal
Limassol, a seaside resort popular with wealthy Russians, where Leonid Lebedev bought a villa as part of his ‘golden passport’ deal

In the Pandora Papers, four companies, including Doubleday Properties, Donmark Finance and Bloomfield Finance were believed to belong to Leonid Lebedev as the UBO [ultimate beneficial owner] .

In June 2013, shortly after assuming the presidency, Anastasiades utilized Lebedev’s private jet for a trip to France to meet with the then French president, François Hollande.

Anastasiades mentioned that he availed the jet ‘complimentary’ due to a strike by French air traffic controllers. He also noted that the aircraft was already scheduled to travel to Geneva for maintenance. For his return journey, he opted for a regular commercial airline.

TNK-ВР And Rosneft Controvery Related To Leonid Lebedev

In 1997, during the auction to sell 40% of TNK shares, Lebedev was not the winning bidder. Nevertheless, he joined forces with his business partnersVictor Vekselberg and Leonid Blavatnik, contributing several tens of millions of dollars to a shared fund. He also included his own TNK shares (1.8%) and shares from the primary TNK producing asset, ‘Nizhnevartovskneftegaz’ (10.5%). However, legally, he did not receive anything in return.

During the negotiations for the sale of a stake in TNK to BP, it was Lebedev’s legal status as a suspect in a criminal case of weapons smuggling from Ukraine to belligerent Yugoslavia in in Turin, Italy that hindered his formal recognition as a shareholder in the Russian oil company. Consequently, Vekselberg and Blavatnik’s requested him to remain discreet in order to avoid disrupting the deal with the British which appeared reasonable to Lebedev. Previously, they had consistently fulfilled their financial commitments to Lebedev, who held an ‘unofficial shareholder’ status.

In 2001, all the three partners met in New York and reached an understanding that Lebedev not only held a 15% stake in TNK but was entitled to an equivalent share in all the proceeds derived from the oil industry. Over an extended period, Lebedev consistently received the agreed-upon payments, including dividends and a share from the sale of TNK to the British. These payments were channeled through the Irish firm, Coral Petroleum Limited, to which the companies under the control of Vekselberg and Blavatnik assigned promissory notes amounting to $600 million over three years.

However, following the sale of TNK-BP to Rosneft, Lebedev spent a year attempting to secure a payment of two billion dollars, which represented his claimed 15% share of the proceeds received by his partners from the Rosneft deal. Despite his efforts, he was unable to achieve this goal, prompting him to resort to legal action. Since the negotiations regarding the profit distribution from the TNK sale occurred in the United States, a formal complaint was submitted in a New York court.

A unanimous four-judge panel of the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Judicial Department in 2021 ruled that Leonid Lebedev’s lawsuit over the sale of oil company TNK-BP in 2013 should proceed because, contrary to the lower court’s ruling, an agreement with billionaire investor Leonard Blavatnik and Russian businessmen Victor Vekselberg is a binding contract.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on Leonid Leonidovich Lebedev

  1. Who is Leonid Leonidovich Lebedev?
    • Leonid Leonidovich Lebedev is a Russian businessman and public figure known for his involvement in various business ventures.
  2. What are Leonid Lebedev’s notable business interests?
    • Lebedev has been associated with the TNK-BP oil company and Sintez Group, among other enterprises.
  3. What is Leonid Lebedev’s background and education?
    • Information regarding his educational background and early life is limited. He is primarily known for his business activities.
  4. What is Leonid Lebedev’s role in TNK-BP?
    • Lebedev was involved in TNK-BP, a major Russian oil company. He played a role in the ownership structure and business operations of the company.
  5. What is the TNK-BP sale and its connection to Leonid Lebedev?
    • The TNK-BP sale was a significant transaction in the Russian energy sector. Lebedev’s involvement in the sale and the subsequent disputes have garnered attention.
  6. Are there any legal issues or controversies associated with Leonid Lebedev?
    • Yes, there have been legal disputes and controversies related to business dealings, illegal arms smuggling to Yugoslavia. including disputes over payments following the TNK-BP sale.

Alexander Harris

Alexander Harris began his career as a journalist. He is one of the founders of the " Russian Oligarchs Tracker Unit ".

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