Hunter Biden’s Russian business associates spared by US sanctions — again

WASHINGTON — Two Russian billionaires who sought out US real estate investments with first son Hunter Biden were spared a fresh round of sanctions announced Friday in response to the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Former Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina, who allegedly dined with then-Vice President Biden in 2014 and 2015, and fellow oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov, who arranged at least two meetings with Hunter Biden during his dad’s vice presidency, were again spared US sanctions.

Baturina is a construction and real estate investor. Yevtushenkov until recently held majority control of a conglomerate that included Russian arms contractors, a bank and the country’s largest cellphone provider.

“Today, 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,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

“We are also imposing sanctions on the Russian Association of Employers the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), a Russian business organization involved in the technology sector of the Russian Federation economy. The organization has promoted import substitution and convened meetings to promote responses to sanctions.”

Blinken said Russian businessmen Olegovich Aven, Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, German Borisovich Khan and Alexey Viktorovich Kuzmichev “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.”

The omissions came the same day Delaware US 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.

It’s unclear why neither Baturina or Yevtushenkov have faced US sanctions, despite their qualifications superficially resembling other Russian oligarchs who have been targeted.

Baturina transferred $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to the corporate entity Rosemont Seneca Thornton. The House Oversight Committee said this week that bank records show that most of that sum was later transferred to a different entity called Rosemont Seneca Bohai, in which Hunter Biden held a 50% stake.

Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer, testified July 31 to the Oversight Committee that he wasn’t sure why Baturina’s money was routed to an entity that he and the then-second son co-owned.

Archer also told the panel that Joe Biden, while vice president, attended a spring 2014 dinner at DC’s Café Milano with Baturina and a group of his son’s Kazakhstani business associates, one of whom, Kenes Rakishev, had wired $142,3000 on April 22, 2014, for Hunter to buy a luxury car.

Baturina also appears to have attended a second Café Milano dinner featuring Joe and Hunter Biden in April 2014, though Archer did not recollect her attendance in his testimony.

Emails from 2015 discuss Baturina as an invitee and a different attendee of that dinner told The Post he saw her there.

It’s unclear if Yevtushenkov ever had personal contact with Joe Biden, but a former associate told The Post this year that he explicitly courted Hunter Biden in the hopes of influencing his dad, who was helping lead US efforts to “reset” in US-Russia relations.

At the time, the US Justice Department was investigating Yevtushenkov’s cellphone company MTS for purportedly paying nearly $1 billion in bribes to Uzbekistani officials from 2004 to 2012. MTS ultimately settled the case with the Trump Justice Department in 2019 and agreed to pay an $850 million fine.

Yevtushenkov met with Hunter to discuss real estate in March 2012 in New York City and January 2013 in Washington, according to documents from the first son’s former laptop.

Ahead of his 2012 meeting with Hunter at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan, Yevtushenkov allegedly said he wanted to befriend Hunter so that “maybe he can do a favor for us and we can do a favor for him,” a source who spoke with Yevtushenkov at the time told The Post.

“It was a complete quid pro quo that he was going in for,” the source said. “I told him that’s not the way it works in America, [but] he basically laughed at me and told me I was so naïve.”

The extent of Hunter’s possible financial benefit from his relationships with Yevtushenkov and Baturina remains unclear.