Father of Putin's Reported Partner Buys Stake in Rosneft's Arctic Contractor
Investigative outlet Sistema reports that Marat Kabaev, father of former gymnast Alina Kabaeva, acquired a 25% stake in logistics firm Taimyr Invest, a contractor for Rosneft's Vostok Oil Arctic project, after the company faced major tax claims.
According to an investigation by outlet Sistema, Marat Kabaev — father of former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva — bought a 25% stake in logistics company Taimyr Invest in spring 2026. The firm provides logistics services for Vostok Oil, a massive Arctic development run by Russian state oil giant Rosneft. Kabaeva is widely described in media reports as President Vladimir Putin's partner and the mother of his youngest children, though neither has publicly confirmed the relationship.
Tax claims preceded the deal
Taimyr Invest faced significant tax claims in 2024, with court documents indicating the company evaded taxes through shell companies. Following two audits, tax authorities ordered it to pay more than 3 billion rubles (about $35.4 million) in additional taxes and roughly 800 million rubles ($9.4 million) in fines. Kabaev became a co-owner only after these claims were issued. Per Sistema, he said the decision followed a conversation with Nikolai Patrushev, a former head of Russia's Federal Security Service and a Putin aide, and that his aim was to help his partners build a strong, socially responsible business.
Taimyr Invest's revenue rose to 55.3 billion rubles (about $652.5 million) in 2024, up from 13.2 billion rubles the prior year, with net profit reaching 1.6 billion rubles ($18.9 million), according to corporate data cited by RBC.
Largest private contractor
Media reports have separately linked another firm, Sinarastroikomplekt, to billionaire Dmitry Pumpyansky and identified it as a Rosneft contractor, though Sistema said it could not independently verify this in public records. The outlet nevertheless calculated that this company received contracts worth nearly 900 billion rubles ($10.6 billion) from Vostok Oil between June 2021 and April 2026, making it the project's largest private contractor.
Rosneft launched Vostok Oil in early September, beginning crude shipments through the newly built Bukhta Sever terminal and completing a 790-kilometer pipeline for the project. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin estimated in 2023 that the project would require about 12 trillion rubles ($141.6 billion) in investment, with a resource base of 6.5 billion metric tons of oil and 10 trillion cubic meters of gas.
