Vladimir Gusinsky no longer has any business, and his debts to creditors exceeded his assets, as evidenced by the affidavit filed by the entrepreneur to a Connecticut court. This marks the end of the business empire of the once powerful oligarch of Boris Yeltsin’s time, who in the 1990s created Most Bank and owned NTV, Echo of Moscow, Itogi magazine and other media assets. Gusinsky now owes at least $ 7.3 million to more than 10 creditors, including former Gazprom-Media CEO and Gazprombank vice president Nikolai Senkevich, one of the former Yukos executives Leonid Nevzlin, former government official and Rusnano chairman Anatoly Chubais, and blogger Maxim Katz.
Details. Gusinsky drafted the financial affidavit on January 1, 2025 as part of the divorce proceedings that have been going on for almost three years in a Connecticut court. The authenticity of the document was confirmed to Agentstvo by Gusinsky’s wife Elena Konstantinou. The affidavit, the falsification of which is subject to criminal liability, suggests that the former oligarch has no business remaining. According to the affidavit, his last two structures — News Ru Israel LTD (the name is similar to the Newsru.com news site, which was famous in the 2000s. Now only its Israeli branch remains, which changed ownership in the 2020s) and New Media Holding LLC (involved in media projects outside Russia) — are going through bankruptcy proceedings and not worth a single cent.
- Gusinsky estimates the value of all his other assets at $ 5,929,000. According to him, they include two houses in Connecticut (the former oligarch estimates the value of his shares at $ 1.8 million and $ 4 million after deducting the debt), a 2013 Mercedes S550 ($ 54,000), an account in the Israeli bank Mizrahi-Tefahot and jewelry worth $ 120,000 (Gusinsky’s share is $ 60,000).
- The document also allows us to understand how the former oligarch lives now. According to the affidavit, the businessman’s weekly expenses amount to $ 4,990. Of this amount, Gusinsky spends $ 2308 on rent in Israel, $ 462 on home improvements, $ 323 on the heating, $ 750 on groceries, $ 456 on his car (gas, maintenance, insurance, etc.), $ 403 on medical care, $ 96 on clothes, and $ 192 on payments to his children.
- Gusinsky’s assets are worth less than his debts. The businessman estimates the latter at $ 7,387,000. He list his creditors as follows: Senkevich — $ 1.35 million, «A. Chubaya» (two people acquainted with Gusinsky say that this is Anatoly Chubais) — $ 500,000, businessman Max Barsky — $ 480,000, former Probusinessbank shareholder Alexander Zheleznyak — $ 400,000, former Yukos co-owner Leonid Nevzlin — $ 220,000 (this amount is listed twice, it is possible that these are two different debts, but we estimate at the lower limit), former vice president of broadcasting operations of Russian-language TV companies created by Gusinsky in the US Julius Feinstein — $ 125,000, «M. Katz» (two of Gusinsky’s acquaintances are sure that this refers to blogger Maxim Katz) — $ 100,000, President of the Conference of European Rabbis and former Chief Rabbi of Moscow Pinchas Goldschmidt — $ 100,000, Zvi Heifetz (possibly the former Israeli ambassador to Russia) — $ 60,000.
- Gusinsky may also have other debts. According to a recent Radio Liberty investigation, he has been in litigation over debts with billionaire Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s bank, a London real estate agent, former business partner Vladimir Lensky, former head of the Inter TV satellite company and Galina Starovoitova’s ex-husband Mikhail Borshevsky, a Florida shipyard, the owner of an office building in Connecticut and the American Express payment system.
- Gusinsky declined to answer Agentstvo’s questions regarding the affidavit and his debts. «I cannot and am not going to comment on any lawsuits, and you probably understand why,» the businessman said before ending the phone conversation.
- Zheleznyak confirmed to Agentstvo that he lent money to Gusinsky in 2018. «They asked to help them out by lending them some money for three months, and then kept bullshitting us for seven years,» the banker said. According to him, he is now trying to recover the money through the court.
- Barsky told Agentstvo that Gusinsky did not borrow money from him and said that the question of how his name ended up in the affidavit should be addressed to Gusinsky.
- He suggested that it could be related to the litigation between Gusinsky and former NTV+ executive Vladimir Lensky, who once introduced them.
- Senkevich, Chubais, Nevzlin, and Katz did not respond to inquiries from an Agentstvo journalist sent via e-mail or Telegram. Zvi Heifetz and Pinchas Goldschmidt could not be contacted.
Context. The affidavit indicates that the once-powerful oligarch, whose fortune Forbes estimated at $ 400 million in 1997, is now effectively bankrupt, as he will have no money left if he pays off all recognized debts to his creditors.
- The long-standing relationship between Gusinsky and Senkevich was well known. It was Senkevich who in 2005, on behalf of Gazprom-Media, signed an agreement with Gusinsky under which the former owner of NTV renounced his claims to the media assets taken from him, but retained the opportunity to earn money in Russia. Gusinsky’s main source of income at that time was the production of TV series, which were purchased en masse by Russian TV channels, primarily those owned by Gazprom-Media. As Proekt previously wrote, a secret «inviolable agreement» (as the participants called it) was negotiated with Putin. Gusinsky continued to present himself as a fighter against Putin’s regime, but the TV series produced by his companies, such as «Agent of National Security,» «Cop Wars,» «Investigation Mysteries,» and many others (456 in total, or one-eighth of all TV series ever shown in Russia), were shown on Russian state television and made him money. As Proekt also wrote earlier, after 2014, Gusinsky’s business began to sink into debt and litigation — Proekt’s interlocutors speculated at the time that this was due, among other things, to the former oligarch’s overly profligate lifestyle.
- Senkevich worked as a vice president of Gazprombank until at least 2021, according to SPARK. In addition, according to the leaks, he continued to receive income from Gazprom, where, according to earlier media reports, he served as an advisor to Alexei Miller. In 2021, Gazprom transferred more than 15 million rubles to Senkevich.
- Gusinsky is also familiar with Maxim Katz, as the Russian blogger admitted. «We started communicating, eating meat together,» Kats said about Gusinsky in an interview with Alexander Plyushchev. Soon after, Katz released a video about the former banker Zheleznyak, accusing him of money laundering and the Anti-Corruption Foundation of covering up for the financier who had fled Russia. At the same time, there was a legal battle between Gusinsky and Zheleznyak over a debt. Zheleznyak was able to impose interim measures on Gusinsky’s family mansion in the United States.
- Elena Gusinskaya (Konstantinou) announced her intention to divorce the former oligarch in December 2020. At the same time, she called her husband a «complete bankrupt». As Konstantinou wrote in her Facebook post (now deleted, but screenshots of it have been preserved), Gusinsky «took all my savings (cash) and mortgaged all our joint property in secret from me». At the time, Gusinskaya estimated the total amount of her husband’s debts at $ 27 million.
Больше новостей, о которых боятся писать в России, — в наших аккаунтах в Telegram, Twitter, Facebook