Misha Japaridze/AP
On Monday, Donald Trump's campaign continued to come under fire for its mysterious and seemingly ever-expanding relationship with Russia, with one of its foreign policy advisers, Carter Page, speaking with Russian government officials. He left the campaign amid allegations that they had met and discussed relations with Russia. There is a possibility that US sanctions will be lifted when Trump takes office. (Page called these allegations “complete garbage.”)
Now we have another Russian connection to add to the list. open secret Simon Grigorievich Kukes, a Russian-American oil tycoon who has led numerous Russian oil companies, has donated 150,000 to the Trump campaign and its joint fundraising committee, Trump Victory, since March of this year. It reported Monday that it had donated more than $1,000. The donation marks his first contribution to a federal election, according to FEC filings.
Kukes, an American citizen who was born in the former Soviet Union and immigrated in his 20s, has worked for and managed a number of Russian oil companies. After he returned to Russia in 1995 as vice president of the Moscow office of the American company Amoco Oil, he worked as vice president of Yukos Oil, one of Russia's largest oil companies. In 1998, he was hired as president and CEO of Tyumen, a major Russian oil producer. Kukes returned to Yukos in 2003 following the high-profile ouster of the company's president, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, then Russia's richest man. Mr. Khodorkovsky was sentenced to 10 years in prison on tax evasion charges, which are widely believed to have been fabricated by Putin's government to retaliate against the billionaire for advocating democracy and corporate governance reform.
Kukes became CEO of Yukos in June 2003 after Khodorkovsky's departure, but left the company a year later to become part-owner of another Russian oil company, Samara Nafta.
Kukes lists himself as retired on his donation form, but open secret He points out that he is still involved in the oil industry. He is the CEO of NAFTA Consulting, a group that advises oil companies in the United States and Russia, and a director of Leverate, a software company that hosts trading platforms. And Kukus isn't just a fan of the Trump presidential campaign. In 2000, he bought a five-room condo in Manhattan's Trump Park for $1.7 million.
