Thread by @USseriously

Today's filing claims that in documents, alleged Russian spy Maria Butina often refers to her “funder” — a Russian oligarch who, according to Forbes, had a net worth of $1.2 billion in 2018. You might want to mute this thread, but I want to try and narrow that down a bit.

https://twitter.com/USseriously/status/1019622818869366789

Forbes’ 2018 billionaires list includes 12 Russian nationals worth an estimated $1.2 billion.

The filing specifically mentions a 'businessman', so it's probably not Elena Baturina. (Would be interesting though, since her husband, former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, could be tied to both Trump and the mob.)

According to the filing "this person often travels to the United States". Boris Rotenberg and his brother are under sanctions due to their close connections to Putin, so that would not be possible for them.

Sergei Kolesnikov is a former associate of Vladimir Putin, however, he now is a whistle-blower on the run, working to expose what he believes to be the defining corruption of the Putin era. He has been living in exile in Estonia and is no longer part of Putin's inner circle.

I made a mistake. The filing mentions the oligarch had a 'real time' net worth of $1.2 billion. The 'real time ranking' is different than Forbes' 2018 ranking and adds more names. To be sure, I'll combine both, we now have;

Yuri Kovalchuk, known as "Putin's banker", is on the US sanctions list.

I had a look at her social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, VK.ru, Facebook) to see if she's following one of the remaining names, but she's not. So, this'll take some more time. Ziyavudin Magomedov was arrested in March, so I don't think it's him.