Once again, Hunter Biden’s Russian “girlfriend” Yelena Baturina escaped the latest round of sanctions. She wasn’t alone. Another of Hunter’s Slavic buddies, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, “who arranged at least two meetings with Hunter Biden during his dad’s vice presidency,” also skated away.
No sanctions for Joe’s friends
It’s funny how Russian billionaire friends of the Biden family manage to evade the sanctions their fellow oligarchs keep getting crippled with. Bank account and asset seizures are so inconvenient.
Two in particular keep making headlines every time another round of penalties is announced and they’re not on the list. On Friday, August 11, they missed the list again.
The lonely widow of Moscow’s former Mayor, Yelena Baturina, is heavily invested in construction and real estate. She should have been hit with sanctions long ago but she’s been very affectionate to Hunter Biden.
On 2/14/14, Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina wired $3.5M to a shell company associated with Hunter Biden & Devon Archer. About $1M was transferred to Archer & the remainder was used to initially fund a new company account, which Archer & Biden used to receive other foreign wires. pic.twitter.com/1bOPKR6CrY
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) August 9, 2023
She’s showered her pet playboy with more than $3.5 million well documented dollars. Yelena transferred that amount on Valentine’s Day, 2014 and soon had a date with Hunter and his partner Devon Archer at a Villa in Italy.
The other big name to unsurprisingly skip the latest sanctions is Vladimir Yevtushenkov, “who arranged at least two meetings with Hunter Biden during his dad’s vice presidency.” James Comer and the oversight committee haven’t found any wire transfers related to him, yet but they’re still working through that huge stack of suspicious activity reports they managed to pry out of the Treasury Department.
Until recently, Yevtushenkov “held majority control of a conglomerate that included Russian military contractors, a bank and the country’s largest cellphone provider.” If that isn’t good for a heavy slap down, what is?
Russia’s financial elite
According to Antony Blinken, who’s desperate to distract attention away from his own Congressional headaches, “the United States is imposing sanctions on four prominent members of Russia’s financial elite who have served on the supervisory board of the Alfa Group Consortium, one of the largest financial and investment conglomerates in Russia.”
They weren’t smart enough to bribe the Biden family in advance.
Blinky also noted that others failed to provide the proper grease. “We are also imposing sanctions on the Russian Association of Employers.” The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs is “a Russian business organization involved in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy.” Just like Baturina and Yevtushenkov.
They didn’t provide the Biden family with any streams of income, then dared to advise others how to avoid penalties by fighting. That was a huge mistake, as they just learned.
A whole bunch of individuals associated with the RSPP “are being designated for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy” while “RSPP is being designated for operating or having operated in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy.”
Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina wired $3.5 million to one of Hunter Biden's companies. And then — voila! — she found herself at dinner with the Vice President of the United States. https://t.co/39HilhFfUn
— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 9, 2023
Another interesting coincidence which didn’t escape the editors at New York Post is the fact the failure to slap sanctions on the Biden supporters “came the same day Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was elevated to be a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden for tax fraud and related crimes after a probation-only plea deal collapsed last month under scrutiny by a federal judge.” Just because he has the power to prosecute doesn’t mean he’ll file any real charges in the end. Everyone is screaming to get him off the case and appoint a real independent special prosecutor for it. We’ll see what happens.
