Gennady Timchenko

Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko (Russian: Геннадий Николаевич Тимченко, also spelled Guennadi Timtchenko; born 9 November 1952) is a Russian oligarch and billionaire businessman. He founded and owns the private investment firm Volga Group. He was previously a co-owner of Gunvor Group. Timchenko has been close friends with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since the early 1990s. In 1991, Putin gave Timchenko an oil export license. Timchenko then founded Gunvor, which has now exported billions of dollars' worth of Russian oil. Timchenko's investment firm Volga Group owns a large stake of shares of the natural gas giant Novatek. The Pandora Papers leaks revealed that a Timchenko firm, which played a key role in the Novatek investment, obtained massive loans through anonymous offshore shell companies. Timchenko was sanctioned by the US over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. He was about to be sanctioned further by the government of the United Kingdom just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As of March 2022, Timchenko was 205th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with an estimated fortune of US $10.3 billion; he is the sixth richest person in Russia. He is known for being the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kontinental Hockey League, and President of the SKA Saint Petersburg ice hockey club. He is a citizen of Russia, Finland, and Armenia.