Thread by @Heidi_Cuda

Ethane — the company that paid @SpeakerJohnson — was majority owned by three Russian nationals: Konstantin Nikolaev, Mikhail Yuriev, and Andrey Kunatbaev.

We know Konstantin Nikolaev
financed Russian spy Butina.

theguardian.com/world/2018/aug…

Konstantin Nikolaev also co-owns a large Russian ammunition producing company — supplying massive amounts of ammunition to kill Ukrainians.

—@OCCRP 2018 archivesoccrp.org/en/investigati…

In 2010, Nikolaev became co-owner of Promtechnologii, the company that controlled Orsis, a major rifle company based in Moscow… Meanwhile, Promtechnologii was expanding. In 2012, the company acquired a share in two ammunition factories in Tula and Ulyanovsk.—@occrp 2018 archives

@OCCRP Nikolaev keeps it in the family — his wife Svetlana sits on the boards of his weapons and ammo companies. And everyone is frens with Putin.


Source: @MomsDemand 2018 archives momsdemandaction.org/new-ties-emerg…

@OCCRP @MomsDemand So just a reminder in 2018 @SpeakerJohnson was among the politicians exposed for taking bad cash from a Russian arms and ammunition dealer under US sanctions.

And now this US Putinist is preventing aid to Ukraine—denying soldiers the ammunition it needs to fight Russian invaders

@OCCRP @MomsDemand @SpeakerJohnson Where does it say in the Bible thou shalt side with the Russian billionaire invaders who make the ammunition that kills people trying to defend their land… it doesn’t.

So as noted in the first tweet at the top, Nikolaev is a major stockholder of ‘American’ Ethane along with fellow Russians Andrey Kunatbaev and Mikhail Yuryev. Let’s take a closer look at their BVI offshore shell company Hewmart Products:

As noted, Nikolaev is a family man:

“Nikolaev’s son Andrey, who is studying in US, volunteered in the 2016 campaign in support of Trump’s candidacy..Nikolaev was spotted at the Trump International Hotel in DC during Trump’s inauguration.—@politico 2018

eenews.net/articles/u-s-e…

@politico 🤪🪆💨

Meanwhile, back to Mikhail Yuryev, who died at the ripe oligarch age of 59:

“In 2018 Yuryev founded the American Ethane Company with Alexander Voloshin, FORMER KREMLIN CHIEF OF STAFF.

Later, Yuryev hosted several political talk shows on RSN and Komsomolskaya Pravda stations.”

“American Ethane has also been represented by Sander Resources and Barbour Griffith & Rogers.”—@politico 2018 archives

Same Barbour Griffith that’s been talking scratch from Russian mob since back in the day.

@politico ‘American’ Ethane’s OGs— Abramovich and Abramov

“In 2014, a Moscow-based company called LLC Alternative, controlled by Russian billionaires Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, owned just under 50% of American Ethane, according to a NOLA lawsuit docs.”
wwltv.com/article/news/i…

@politico ‘American’ Ethane’s cutout CEO wife is Irish. Just kidding. She’s Russian.

“Houghtaling, a New Orleans lawyer and entrepreneur, became the firm’s CEO. Houghtaling’s wife is Russian.”—@guardian 2018 archives

Along with Trump frens lobbying for Russian Ethane, US Congress members so helpful:

“Osborne also said their work entails getting members of Congress in Louisiana and Texas to submit official inquiries through the U.S. government and the Chinese government in the hopes their contract would be honored.”—@CNBC

cnbc.com/amp/2019/02/21…

@politico @guardian So meanwhile, back on the British Virgin Islands, the ‘Russian’ Ethane shareholder who’s not dead yet Andrey Kunatbaev has tentacles to Hewmart Products Inc., one of the 11 owners, according to @ICIJorg

@politico @guardian @ICIJorg So what else do ‘Russian’ Ethane’s Russian owners do other than buy politicians to lobby for big billion dollar Chinese contracts, own Russian guns and ammo companies used to war on Ukrainians and send their kids to infiltrate Trump campaign… build fleets
marinelog.com/news/american-…

@politico @guardian @ICIJorg “Johnson’s campaign manager, Jason Hebert, said in an email that the campaign returned the money in 2018 once it was ‘made aware of the situation.’”

When can the American people return @SpeakerJohnson now that we’ve been made aware of the situation.🪆💨

@politico @guardian @ICIJorg @SpeakerJohnson Nikolaev👉🏼Butina👉🏼NRA👉🏼Johnson👈🏼Nikolaev

@politico @guardian @ICIJorg @SpeakerJohnson If you appreciate the all-nighter I just pulled tying Johnson to a Russian arms dealer, please consider supporting my work.

bettedangerous.com/subscribe

And thank you in advance for supporting independent investigative journalism.

ko-fi.com/heidicuda

I could smell Deripaska:

“Mr. Nikolaev once served on a government-sponsored council for public-private partnerships in the military-industrial sector, along with influential oligarchs like Oleg V.
Deripaska, a longtime associate of the Trump campaign's convicted former chairman, Paul J. Manafort. And his business entanglements stretch into areas that share a theme of military and security applications, which generally require trusted relations with the authorities.”—@nytimes 2018 archives
nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/…

“Mr. Nikolaev has been an investor in a gun company run by his wife that developed a sniper rifle used by the Russian National Guard, which reports directly to President Vladimir V. Putin.

He is also a major investor in a satellite imagery firm that has a license from the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B., to handle classified information.”—@nytimes 2018 archives

“Worth slightly more than $1 billion, Mr. Nikolaev, together with two partners, owns about a third of Globaltrans, one of Russia's largest rail car operators, and the trio recently sold a major stake in a port business. He also sits on the board of American Ethane, a Houston-based energy company, and has invested in business ventures with Igor Rotenberg, the son of Arkady Rotenberg, a close childhood friend of Mr. Putin's.”—@nytimes 2018

smh

@FEC It would be weird right if ‘Russian’ Ethane “never generated income” — despite “agreements to construct ships”, a “pipeline”, and “export ethane to China” — it didn’t move “beyond development stage”. Like as if the point was to create a cash funnel to pols
fec.gov/files/legal/mu…

@FEC It’s now February and Ukraine is suffering. Someone’s got to fuckin do this work.

@FEC So you can see why Ukraine pressured the West to sanction Nikolaev. In his munitions endeavors, he is assisting Russia in its Ukrainian genocide — as is @SpeakerJohnson who in 2018 took money from a Nikolaev-owned shell company. The money was returned, but quid pro quo continues.

@FEC @SpeakerJohnson It should surprise absolutely no one that extremist homophobe Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was an officer on extremist homophobe Mike Johnson’s non-profit ‘Freedom Guard’, which offered legal counsel for extremist homophobes.

@FEC @SpeakerJohnson Such nice frens Johnson has.

@FEC @SpeakerJohnson @splcenter So it’s weird Johnson took money from a Russian company that didn’t really do anything but give christofascists cash, and it’s equally weird he was the dean of a law school that never opened whose founder caught up in sex abuse scandals with young men. Maybe not so weird. #MICE🪆

So many nice pro-Putin frens.🥴🪆

For further reading, see Vatnik #192

vatniksoup.com/en/soups/192/

🥴🪆Putin’s No. 1 US fren Robert Mercer put $600k into Warrior PAC 2016 and $480k went into his very own bankrupt weapon of mass democratic destruction Cambridge Analytica, while funding Christofascist gay bashing Kremlin fanboy Mike Johnson into Congress.
bayoubuzz.com/dir/index.php/…

Here’s your Putin-Mercer refresher:

More to this story here as we follow the money to Putin’s network.