A few years later this “trading desk” was sold, turning Timchenko and his partners into private oil traders. Fifteen years on, under Vladimir Putin, Timchenko would emerge as one of the biggest private traders of Russia’s state-owned oil, and, critics say, a symbol of crony capitalism and the corporatist state. In 2014 he was designated as a member of Putin’s inner circle by the US government and was subjected to sanctions.
