Rosneft… and Trump?
As my Trump timeline continues to grow, I’ve been made aware of the following interesting ‘coincidences’ that deserve pulling out into their own article.
From the Orbis Trump dossier, memo dated 18 October 2016:
In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sanctions imposed on the company that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatised) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.
Russia published a government decree on Monday ordering the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in state-controlled oil giant Rosneft (ROSN.MM) in time for the proceeds to be received by the end of the year.
Russia said on Wednesday it sold a stake in oil giant Rosneft (ROSN.MM) for 10.5 billion euros ($11.3 billion) to Qatar and commodities trader Glencore (GLEN.L), confounding expectations that the Kremlin’s standoff with the West would scare off major investors.
The deal, to acquire a 19.5 percent stake in Rosneft from the Russian state, suggests the lure of taking a share in one of the world’s biggest oil companies outweighs the risks that come with Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. […] Rosneft is subject to U.S. sanctions imposed after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014. But since the money from the sale of the stake will go to the Russian state, rather than to Rosneft, the sanctions do not directly apply.
Moscow Times, 14 January 2017:
A top executive from Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, has been found dead in central Moscow, according to the Life.ru news site.
Oleg Erovinkin, Rosneft President Igor Sechin’s chief of staff, was discovered in the back seat of a company Lexus by his driver, who alerted the emergency services.
According to The Independent, the US intelligence services were receiving the Orbis memos from September 2016 onwards:
By September, information to the FBI began to grow in volume: Mr Steele compiled a set of his memos into one document and passed it to his contacts at the FBI.
So it seems likely that US intelligence services were told of the alleged Rosneft deal months before the sale actually happened. At a minimum, this substantially increases the credibility of the memos.
It also seems to be the case that Erovinkin was formerly an FSB agent, though I don’t have a mainstream source for that.