WASHINGTON — Two Russian oligarchs who were searching for real estate investments with first son Hunter Biden have been spared again from one other round of US sanctions targeting the Russian economy.
Billionaires Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenko avoided the Biden administration’s latest list of Russian government officials and businessmen facing sanctions on Friday – regardless that a few of those included on this round appear to have similar credentials to the couple.
A State Department press release said the U.S. “sanctions or identifies as blocked property over 200 entities, individuals, ships and aircraft,” with an attached factsheet identifying the targets because the Russian invasion of Ukraine drags on.
Amongst those affected by the brand new sanctions are Russian government officials and other people related to energy, mining and technology firms, including allegedly sanction-dodging firms in third countries corresponding to Canada, China and Iran.
The list also included those accused of war crimes and Ukrainian grain thieves.
“It’s worrying that Hunter Biden’s Russian oligarchs have disappeared from the Treasury Department’s public sanctions list of Russian elites and oligarchs,” House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Post.
![HUNTER BIDEN](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000009907130-2.jpg?w=1024)
“We’d like to know if [the Biden family’s] business associates are given preferential treatment by the Biden administration,” said Comer, who in April he wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen demanding a reply.
Baturina, the previous first lady of Moscow, brought her together $1.3 billion made a fortune through the development business during her late husband’s corrupt tenure as mayor from 1992 to 2010 – and in February 2014, donated $3.5 million to a company entity related to then-second son Hunter Biden, based on a 2020 report by the Senate Republican Committees.
Yevtushenko’s sprawling conglomerate, Sistema, controls Russia’s largest cell phone supplier, MTS, and until last yr had Russian military contractors, including missile and radar maker RTI and drone maker Kronstadt.
![Yelena Baturina](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011373521.jpg?w=1024)
Yevtushnkov is believed to be price approx $1.7 billion and is already sanctioned by the UK and Australia.
he recently reduced its stake in Sistema to 49.2% in an apparent response to UK sanctions, giving his son Feliz 10%.
“I feel he must be punished,” Michael McFaul, the previous US ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told The Post in March. “I do not understand why he wasn’t there.”
Files from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicate that he met with Baturina and Yevtushenko on quite a few occasions, and a witness placed Baturina at a dinner in Washington in April 2015 with then-Vice President Joe Biden, which was also attended by Hunter’s Ukrainian and Kazakh associates.
![Vladimir Yevtushenko](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011373891.jpg?w=1024)
The extent of Baturina’s possible U.S. real estate investments is unclear, as is the quantity of income which will have been made available to Hunter.
Yevtushenko allegedly tried to cope with Hunter Biden due to a long-running Justice Department investigation into MTS, which was listed on the Recent York Stock Exchange for paying nearly $1 billion in bribes paid to Uzbek officials between 2004 and 2012.
Yevtushenko admitted that he met Hunter Biden on the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Manhattan in March 2012, and laptop records indicate they met again in January 2013.
“I asked [Yevtushenkov], ‘Why are you doing this?’ on the front – before I spotted they were going to purchase some real estate,” a source told The Post. “‘Why are you even doing this? Why would you pay the Vice President’s son to satisfy you at a public restaurant in Recent York City?
![Former Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011373592.jpg?w=682)
“He made it very clear to me that … ‘I feel it could be good to have a superb relationship with this guy … possibly he can do us a favor and we are able to do him a favor,’ the source said. “It was an entire quid pro quo he got himself into.”
“I told him that is not how it really works in America, [but] he just laughed at me and said I used to be so naive,” recalls Yevtushenko’s source.
MTS finally settled corruption case in Uzbekistan with Trump Justice Department in 2019 and paid $850 million tremendous.
The NYSE froze trading in the corporate’s shares last yr.
Amongst those hit by US sanctions on Friday is Igor Kesaev, who was described in a US press release as a “Russian businessman with previous investments within the Russian arms industry.”
![Vladimir Yevtushenko](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000011373896.jpg?w=1024)
Kesayev, like Yevtushenko, has already been sanctioned by some US allies – in his case, the European Union and the UK.
Although some experts speculate that Baturina’s extensive investments outside of Russia are the explanation why she shouldn’t be facing US sanctions, the brand new batch of sanctions specifically targets the British holding company Hanley Limited of Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov.
Baturina and Yevtushenko courted their second son while his vice-president’s father helped the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin, then guided US policy towards Ukraine after Russia seized Crimea in 2014.
Sanctions generally freeze any assets close by of U.S. banks, cut off targets from the international banking system, and forestall firms from maintaining relationships with designated entities.
Asked on Friday in regards to the omission of Baturina and Yevtushenko from the brand new sanctions list, a State Department official told The Post that the agency didn’t comment on those not on the list.
![JOE BIDEN AND HUNTER BIDEN](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/05/NYPICHPDPICT000009907124-2.jpg?w=1024)
Representatives for Hunter Biden, the White House, Baturina and Yevtushenko didn’t immediately reply to The Post’s requests for comment.
Hunter Biden is under federal criminal investigation for alleged tax fraud, unrecorded foreign lobbying, money laundering, and lying about drug use on a gun purchase form.
Comer this month identified nine members of Biden’s family who allegedly received money from China, Romania and elsewhere – though the president was not amongst them.
Representatives within the House of Representatives are searching for additional documents that would potentially tie Joe Biden to foreign ventures led mainly by Hunter and first brother James Biden.