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Vladimir Peftiev

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Vladimir P. Peftiev
Владимир Павлович Пефтиев
Born (1957-07-01) July 1, 1957 (age 67)
Berdyansk,  Ukrainian SSR
Citizenship Belarus
Alma materDnipropetrovsk National University of Rail Transport
OccupationBusinessman
Years activeSince 1988
Known forArms trade, investments
SpouseOlga Makarova
Children5

Vladimir Pavlovich Peftiev (Belarusian: Уладзiмiр Паўлавiч Пефцiеў; Russian: Владимир Павлович Пефтиев, born 1 July 1957) is a Belarusian businessman, investor and philanthropist. He is being accused of having supported the authoritarian Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, responsible of human rights violations[citation needed].

Biography

Vladimir Pavlovich Peftiev was born on 1 July 1957 in the city of Berdyansk, Ukraine.[2] He was educated in the Ukraine at the Institute of Railway Transport Engineers (currently Dnipropetrovsk National University of Rail Transport), graduating in 1979 with a diploma in electromechanical engineering. From 1979 till 1988 he worked with Belarusian Railway and then with Minsk Metro as chief engineer, following which in 1988 he began a career in private business.

Business

Overview

Peftiev’s business interests since leaving Minsk Metro have included technological development, special equipment and military exports, telecommunications, medical technology, IT- technology, and sports

  • 1989-1992: regenerated polymer processing (Plastpribor, a cooperative)
  • 1993-2012: export of special purpose equipment and technologies including military equipment (BelTechExport)
  • 1998-2007: mobile phone services (Velcom), now owned by Telekom Austria Group
  • 1998-2015: data transmission (Delovaya SetBusiness Network)
  • 2006–present:, telecommunications, real estate development, technological development (BT Telecommunications)
  • 2007–present: interactive electronic games (ZAO Sport-pari)

During the past few years, Peftiev has disposed of some of his business assets, including his shareholding in BelTechExport and Delovaya Set, and restructured his remaining business interests. He now owns 31% of Sport Pari, with the remainder held by a company belonging to the family of well-known tennis player and 2012 Olympic Champion Maxim Mirnyi.

Controversies, criticism

Peftiev is often being referred to as one of Belarus’s richest oligarchs, and a close associate of dictator Alexander Lukashenko, or even 'Lukashenko's banker'.[3][4][unreliable source] In 2007 Peftiev was suspected of having “transferred ill-gotten assets” on Lukashenko’s behalf.[5][unreliable source]

According to 2006 US diplomatic documents published by Wikileaks, Peftiev and one of his business partners "worked closely together and were reportedly the first businessmen to support Lukashenko. As such, their businesses benefited directly from a number of presidential decrees." He was named in the document as Belarus' richest private businessman with a personal wealth of USD 900 million.[6]

According to Malta Today, since 1999 Peftiev lived in Malta.[5][3][unreliable source] According to some reports, he even obtained a citizenship of Malta.[7][unreliable source] Peftiev allegedly returned to Belarus in 2007.[8][unreliable source]

Arms trade

According to Pavel Sheremet, in 1994 Peftiev was one of the sponsors and proteges of the prime minister Vyacheslav Kebich. Peftiev's company BelTechExport was selling arms from the massive former Soviet arsenals based in Belarus. After Alexander Lukashenko became president, Peftiev continued his business activity, becoming associated with Viktor Sheiman, a close ally of Lukashenko.[9][unreliable source]

According to media reports, Peftiev's companies sold weapons to the army of president Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast as well as allegedly to China and North Korea.[10][unreliable source]

A court in the Republic of Lithuania stated that Peftiev had links to the arrested Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.[11][unreliable source]

EU sanctions

In 2011, after the wave of repressions that followed the 2010 presidential election in Belarus, the Council of the European Union listed Peftiev and his three companies BelTechExport, Sport Pari and BT Telecommunications as sanctioned entities.[12][unreliable source] In the Council's decision, Peftiev has been described as follows:[13]

[A] person associated with President Lukashenko and his family. Chief economic advisor of President Lukashenko and key financial sponsor of the Lukashenko regime. Chairman of the Council of Shareholders of Beltechexport, the largest export/import company of defence products in Belarus

According to political activist and former presidential candidate Ales Michalevic, Peftiev offered US$ 10 million to "anyone who would manage to remove him from the sanctions list."[8][unreliable source]

Peftiev protested the Council's decision in the General Court of the European Union. At the end of October 2014, before the case had been decided, the sanctions were dropped by the EU Council.[14] On 9 December 2014, the General Court of European Union decided in Peftiev’s and his companies’ favour, annulling the sanctions and ruling that the Council of the European Union and European Commission had made serious mistakes while evaluating Peftiev's business activities.[15] The Council did not appeal the Court's decision.

The European General Court’s judgment of 9 December 2014 concerning Peftiev reads, in part (clause 149):[16]

the Court held that [the sanctions involving Belarus] should be annulled in so far as they concern Mr Peftiev. By virtue of that annulling judgment, the annulled acts, in so far as they concern Mr Peftiev, are deleted retroactively from the legal order and deemed never to have existed … and consequently Mr Peftiev is deemed never to have been listed.

Offshores

Vladimir Peftiev was mentioned during the Panama Papers scandals. His wife Olga Makarova allegedly set up over 12 offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands and Seychelles while Peftiev's companies were under EU and US sanctions. According to Malta Today, this has helped Peftiev do business with the EU despite the sanctions.[17][unreliable source] Pevtiev was also mentioned in the Bahamas offshore leaks in 2016: allegedly, he held three companies in Bahamas through an intermediary.[18][unreliable source]

Science and technology

During his career to date, Peftiev has contributed research and development to a number of new technologies in mechanical engineering and medicine, of which fourteen have been awarded patents under his name. In his research and development work, Peftiev has cooperated with such Belarusian scientists as Vladimir Alexandrovich Katko and Sergey Vladimirovich Pletnev.

Philanthropy

Peftiev supports a variety of social, cultural and religious-heritage projects.

Sport

In 1995, Peftiev founded a youth tennis club in Minsk which he financed and continued to support until 2011. The club helped to recruit highly qualified trainers for talented up-and-coming players, and provided financial assistance and a sports centre to promote national youth tennis. Peftiev was the main sponsor of Victoria Azarenka, Olympic tennis champion and former world No. 1, at the beginning of her career.

From 2009 to 2012, Peftiev also headed the Belarus Tennis Federation [Белорусская теннисная федерация].

Religious heritage

Peftiev’s contributions to the preservation of Orthodox Christian heritage have been recognised with numerous awards from leaders in the Orthodox Church (see below). Since 1998, he has been a member of the Tutorial Board for construction of the Orthodox Church of All Saints and Innocent Victims in Minsk (under the aegis of the Belarusian Orthodox Church). He assisted in the construction of the House of Mercy in Minsk and is a leading sponsor of the Nikolsky Orthodox Church in Tonezh (completed 2015), built to commemorate the site of a Nazi atrocity.

During 2012-2015, Peftiev sponsored the mural paintings in St John the Baptist’s Church of the Monastery of the Holy Ascension in Barkalabovo (Belarus) carried out by students and professors of the Monumental Art Department of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts in a team headed by Belarusian artist Vladimir Zinkevich.

Vladimir Peftiev is a Chevalier of Orders of the Russian Orthodox Church, a Chevalier of the Order of the Belarusian Orthodox Church, and has also been decorated by the Orthodox Metropolitan of Switzerland.

History and the arts

Peftiev has sponsored and in some cases co-authored a number of art and historical publications, chiefly in the historical series В поисках утраченного [‘In search of the lost’] by Belarusian historian Vladimir. A. Lihodedov, volumes of which include:

  • "Tadeusz Kosciuszko", on the prominent political and military leader who contributed to the establishment of freedom and democracy in Europe and America, in respect of which a copy of this work was presented to the US Library of Congress on July 4, 2011 ISBN 978-985-458-218-4;
  • "Belarus through the camera lens of the German soldier", on the period during WWI when part of modern Belarus was occupied by German troops ISBN 978-985-458-174-3;
  • "Adam Mickiewicz", on the great poet and patriot of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania ISBN 978-985-458-177-4;
  • "Aleksander Nevsky", on the Orthodox churches built in European countries in honor of the celebrated Russian saint-prince ISBN 978-985-458-210-8;
  • "State Bank of the Russian Empire in postcards, late 19th-early 20th centuries" ISBN 978-985-458-202-3;
  • "Monuments dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812", ISBN 978-985-458-230-6.

Peftiev has also co-authored:

  • "The Patriotic War of 1812 in old cards and drawings", a commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the Russian Campaign of Napoleon I and the Russian Patriotic War of 1812 ISBN 978-985-458-231-3;
  • "Equal-to-the-Apostles Duke Vladimir" (Святой Равноапостольный князь Владимир) ISBN 978-985-575-057-5.

In 2017 a book of maxims by Vladimir Peftiev titled "Maxims of a Man of Schemes"[19][20] was published with a foreword by Anthony Clifford Grayling usually known as A. C. Grayling, a British philosopher and author who in 2011 founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy and other subjects. He is also a contributing Editor of Prospect Magazine and in addition he sits on the editorial boards of several academic journals, and for nearly ten years was the Honorary Secretary of the principal British philosophical association, the Aristotelian Society. The foreword by A. C. Grayling says:

These striking, amusing and sometimes pungent aphorisms are so full of a certain kind of pragmatic wisdom that I am moved to quote Professor Higgins on Mr Alfred Doolittle: that the latter was "the most original moralist" that the former had encountered for many years. The hard truths of practical life are apt to wring from people of experience a view of how to navigate the maze of routes that lies between desire and success; it is not, invariably, a view for the faint-hearted or those persuaded more by Aristotle than Gordon Gekko; but it will certainly strike a chord with many who have ventured that maze, and will certainly provide a preparation – and for some a warning – to those planning or wishing to do so. No-one can fail to profit, therefore – in at least one relevant sense of that term – from these maxims, offered by one who has been all the way through that maze and back.

Peftiev’s contributions are helping to preserve the memory of Belarusian soldiers and fighters who fell in the Polish and Lithuanian uprisings of the nineteenth century, the Russian-French War of 1812 (the Patriotic War of 1812), and the First and Second World Wars. Thousands of unique artifacts, photographs, documents and letters have been collected so far, and in 2012 an exhibition at the Belarusian State Museum made many visible to the public.

Other publications supported by Peftiev in recent years have included books and albums of the work of Belarusian artists Vladimir Zinkevich, Alexander Slucky, Viktor Alshevsky, and celebrated ballet choreographer Valentin Elizarev.

In 1999, Peftiev’s companies partnered with Elizarev and the French Embassy in Belarus to produce the ballet La Esmeralda (inspired by Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris) at The National Academic Grand Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus.

For several years, Peftiev’s companies also sponsored the Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival in Minsk and the Belarusian vocal quintet Clear Voice.

References

  1. ^ "Владимир Пефтиев — миллиардер?" [Vladimir Peftiev is a Billionaire?] (in Russian). Narodnaya Volya (newspaper). Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  2. ^ Council Implementing Regulation (EU) No 1000/2011 of 10 October 2011 implementing Article 8a(1) of Regulation (EC) No 765/2006 concerning restrictive measures in respect of Belarus
  3. ^ a b Vell, Matthew (17 October 2013). "The keys to the EU for €650,000: how Malta's golden passport scheme will work". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  4. ^ Vella, Matthew (24 February 2012). "Foreign Ministry issues penalties on trade with Belarus tycoon". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  5. ^ a b Vella, Matthew (21 September 2016). "Belarus dictator's 'bagman' Vladimir Peftiev, once a Malta resident, named in ICIJ's Bahamas offshore leaks". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  6. ^ "BELARUS' TOP 50 OLIGARCHS". Wikileaks. 16 June 2006. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  7. ^ Dalli, Miriam (3 September 2011). "US embassy cables: Belarus money-man channelled funds from Malta to dictator". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  8. ^ a b Чернявский, Николай (13 February 2012). "10 фактов из жизни «кошелька Лукашенко»" [Ten Facts from the Life of "Lukashenko's Wallet"]. Salidarnasts. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  9. ^ Pavel, Sheremet (9 April 2012). "Олигарх дрожащий" [The trembling oligarch] (in Russian). Ogonyok. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  10. ^ "The Belarus Networks (an investigation by Journalism++, @Yakwala and Charter'97, financed in part by JournalismFund.eu and Canal France International". France 24. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  11. ^ "Lithuanian court: Oligarch Peftiev has links with Viktor Bout". Charter'97. 4 September 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  12. ^ Поўны спіс 208 беларускіх чыноўнікаў, якім забаронены ўезд у ЕС - Nasha Niva, 11.10.2011
  13. ^ "COUNCIL DECISION 2011/357/CFSP of 20 June 2011 amending Decision 2010/639/CFSP concerning restrictive measures against certain officials of Belarus". EUR-Lex. 20 June 2011. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  14. ^ http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32014D0750
  15. ^ http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=160487&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=24475, part 7, "The plea in law concerning manifest errors of assessment," articles 148-206.
  16. ^ "CURIA - Documents". curia.europa.eu. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  17. ^ Vella, Matthew (17 May 2016). "Panama Papers: Wife of Belarus oligarch in Malta used BVI companies during EU sanctions". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  18. ^ Vella, Matthew (21 September 2016). "Belarus dictator's 'bagman' Vladimir Peftiev, once a Malta resident, named in ICIJ's Bahamas offshore leaks". Malta Today. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  19. ^ "Akkadia Press". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
  20. ^ "ISBN". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)

See also

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