Mystery Over Putin Family-Linked Jet That Left Moscow on Eve of War: Report

A private jet previously used by the family of Russian President Vladimir Putin that left Moscow on the eve of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, is now being operated by an Austria-based charter company linked to Russian oligarchs, an investigation has found.

Important Stories, an independent Russian investigative news outlet, released a report on Monday publishing details of the $60 million private jet that was first purchased in January 2013 by Gennady Timchenko, a billionaire friend of Putin. It has allegedly been used to transport members of the Russian president's family, including his daughter Katerina Tikhonova.

The Gulfstream G650 jet was sold by Timchenko in 2014 as he was hit by U.S. sanctions. After that, it was transferred to different countries' aircraft registries, the jet's registration number was changed, and the offshore companies listed in documents as its owner changed several times before going to Amerivo Holdings Limited, a subsidiary of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), in 2018, Reuters reported at the time.

Important Stories found that in 2021, the aircraft was transfered to the Austrian-based charter company Avcon Jet, one of the largest business aviation operators. The news outlet reported that the former owners of the company are linked to businesses associated with Gazprombank, a privately owned Russian bank, Elena Akimova, the former wife of the bank's head, Andrei Akimov, as well as Putin's friends.

Newsweek has contacted Avcon Jet via email for comment.

"The company has a long history of providing services to associates of the president of Russia," the news outlet found, reporting that the jet departed from Moscow and went to Geneva on February 23, 2022, the day before Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It's unclear who was on the plane.

According to the report, Avcon Jet transported a group of pro-Putin loyalists around Russia ahead of the country's 2012 elections. The charter company also allegedly served a jet belonging to Russian oligarch and Putin ally Boris Rotenberg, and continued to do so after he was hit with U.S. sanctions in 2014.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man before he fell foul of Putin, told Newsweek last month that Putin fled Moscow during a mutiny led by Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 24.

He said he learned from one of his contacts that Putin left Moscow by plane during the failed coup, and most likely went to his residence in Valdai, in between Russia's Tver and Novgorod regions, located some 250 miles away.

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