The NepoPep: Sons of Duma deputy and UK Conservative party donor run German property businesses

A sanctioned deputy of the Russian Federation’s Duma, and a Russian businessman and UK Conservative party donor have a connection through their respective sons, who run two German property development businesses.

Boris Victorovich Ivanyuzhenkov, a Duma deputy and alleged member of a Moscow criminal gang, also shared private jet flights with Victor Fedotov, a Russian businessman now based in the UK, who has donated to the UK Conservative party.

Ivanyuzhenkov’s UK-educated son, Boris Borisovich Ivanyuzhenkov, has a UK-based business partner Mikhail Victorovich Fedotov, son of Viktor.

It is the first time Viktor Fedotov’s connection to Ivanyuzhenkov Sr through their sons has been reported. It is also the first time Ivanyuzhenkov Sr’s UK and German connections through his son have been reported.

According to Ilia Shumanov, a managing partner at TriTrace investigation bureau and a member of Transparency International Russia in Exile’s board: “The children are a reflection of their families, or their parents, their elders. Fedotov’s father, for example, was involved in some murky business that has been reported. The kids fly on business jets with their fathers where this business is discussed. They grow up in this environment.”

Aquind

Viktor Fedotov is, among other things, a person with significant control at the company Aquind, along with Alexander Temerko. Both men are prominent donors to the UK’s Conservative Party and its members of parliament. The Conservative Party and 11 of its MPs took donations from Aquind to fund their 2019 election campaigns, according to a public database.

Aquind is seeking government permission to develop a high voltage direct current electric power transmission link between the UK and northern France. So far it has not been successful in obtaining that permission despite all the political donations. A BBC report in 2021 found Viktor Fedotov’s businesses had donated £700,000 to 34 MPs and their local parties since the Aquind project began in 2008.

In 2021, The Guardian reported that Fedotov was allegedly involved in a fraud that siphoned money from Russian state pipeline monopoly Transneft. Documents in the ‘Pandora Papersʼ obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) alleged that Vniist, a company co-owned by Fedotov, was involved in embezzling Transneft funds. He denied any involvement at the time and did not respond to a request for comment.

Source: NorthData

Flight data

The Fedotovs have shared private jet flights with the Ivanyuzhenkovs, according to flight manifest data obtained by Shumanov.

The information is part of a data leak of Russian travel databases. There have been several over the past six years or more.

The flight data shows Ivanyuzhenkov Sr has travelled to the UK, Germany, Greece, India, Italy and the Czech Republic. It shows Victor Fedotov and Ivanyuzhenkov Sr shared six flights together on June 24, 2018;  November 6, 2018; August 9, 2018; December 25, 2017; August 9, 2017; and May 4, 2016. Those flights were to the UK, Germany, Switzerland, India, Greece, and Switzerland respectively.

Ivanyuzhenkov Sr also shared a flight to Italy with his daughter and Mikhail Fedotov in July 2017; Mikhail Fedotov was also on the 2017 flight to India mentioned above . Ivanyuzhenkov Sr and his daughter were on a flight together in 2017 going to the UK.

Longtime friends

Not much is known about Mikhail Fedotov. He went to the prestigious Stowe School in Buckinghamshire and, according to Companies House, lives in The Octagon, an £18 million mansion in Londonʼs borough of Kensington and Chelsea (owned by his father through a Swiss company). He and Boris Borisovich Ivanyuzhenkov appear to have been friends for a long time: they are pictured together on LinkedIn and tagged on Facebook.

The two are also directors of German property companies Raise Development, registered in February 2020, and Straddle, registered in January 2020, according to publicly available company information. Raise Development’s LinkedIn page shows several renders for multi-family residential properties in Hechingen, Germany.

German financial services regulator BaFin did not reply to a request for comment, and the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) declined to comment on these findings.

Meanwhile, flight data shows the fathers, Victor Fedotov and Ivanyuzhenkov Sr, together on a private jet flight to Germany in 2018, and on another flight to Switzerland in the same year.

The sons are also persons with significant control at a UK company called Rivered, which claimed to be involved in restaurants, clubs, public houses and bars, according to the UK’s Companies House. Rivered was dormant from January 2020, when it was incorporated, until March 2025, when it was dissolved via compulsory strike off. The company never filed a financial statement.

The Ivanyuzhenkovs, representatives of the Fedotovs, and the Russia Federation Duma press office did not respond to detailed emails seeking comment.

This is the second of two articles about Boris Borisovich Ivanyuzhenkov’s business dealings written by Rachel Wolcott in partnership with Ilia Shumanov and the Transparency International Russia in Exile dirty money investigation team.