Marat Kabaev, the father of former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, who is said to be the mother of Russian President Vladimir Putin's children, is a partner in RBS lawyers linked to the attack on Russian assets of the Swiss holding Holcim. The agency writes about it.
At the end of July, the Swiss cement concern Holcim reported a raider attack on its Russian plants. As the Project found out , acquaintances of Vladimir Putin and the entourage of Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin may be behind the attack on Holcim. In particular, we are talking about long-term cement specialist Igor Kharchenko, who is associated with lawyers from the consulting company RBS.
RBS, in turn, as the Agency notes, is associated with Marat Kabaev, Alina's father. He is President of the International Association of Islamic Businesses (IAIB) and chairs the Board of Directors of the IAIB Private Equity Fund, which describes itself as "the largest Sharia fund." The fund's contact phone number matches the RBS number (one of Kharchenko's companies also indicated the same number).
The Board of Directors of the MAIB Fund includes two partners of RBS, who hold the positions of Financial Director and Director of Legal Affairs, respectively. As the Dozhd TV channel reported in 2018, Marat Kabaev is an influential public figure and is part of Vladimir Putin's inner circle. In addition, according to the channel, Kabaev lobbied Marat Khusnullin for the post of vice-mayor of Moscow.
In turn, Khusnullin has several intersections with Kharchenko’s projects at once: the vice-mayor oversaw the mega-operator Mosinzhproekt and the construction projects in the capital, in which Kharchenko participated, the two of them sat in the Scientific and Technical Council on urban planning policy and the construction of the city of Moscow, and among Kharchenko's partners are people from Khusnullin's team.
After the start of the war, one of the world's largest cement producers, the Swiss holding Holcim, announced its withdrawal from the Russian market. A few months after this decision, the legal entity of the Russian "daughter" Holcim tried to re-register a certain "portfolio investor" Yevgeny Kostyukevich.
At the same time, Kostyukevich appears in this story not as a real person, but as a character created using the “deepfake” technology.
Kostyukevich's claims to Holcim's assets were first voiced in an interview with Forbes (it has already been removed from the publication's website, a copy is in the archive ), and later they were supported by a copy of the court decision, which he (more precisely, the one who introduced himself to them) gave Forbes. It followed from the document that in June 2022, the Leninsky District Court of Grozny decided to transfer 100% of the shares in the main assets of Holcim in Russia to Kostyukevich.
Holcim itself said that they did not know Kostyukevich, and the agreement on the assignment of debts was a fake. The company learned about the claims after the fact, when some people tried to re-register the Russian business of Holcim.
Trying to understand this story, the author of the Project investigation (then still a Forbes journalist) arranged a video interview with Kostyukevich. Here is how he described what happened:
“The opportunity to evaluate the resourcefulness of these shadowy organizers presented itself an hour after the appointed time, when the image of Kostyukevich finally appeared on the screen. From his first words, it became obvious that this was a deepfake – a photograph “animated” with the help of artificial intelligence. The absurdity of the situation was obvious, but this was not the limit. For the communication session, a very poor quality image was used – only the pupils and corners of the lips moved in Kostyukevich, and the contours of the face were as if glued to the background.
According to Proekt, Putin's acquaintances and the entourage of Deputy Prime Minister Khusnullin may be behind the attack on Holcim. In particular, we are talking about cement specialist Kharchenko.