A Time investigation reveals recently-sanctioned former GRU officer Victor Alekseyevich Boyarkin was pressuring Paul Manafort during his tenure as the Trump campaign chair to repay a large debt he owed Russian oligarch and Putin ally Oleg Deripaska.
In his only interview with the media about those connections, Boyarkin told TIME this fall that he was in touch with Trump’s then-campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, in the heat of the presidential race on behalf of the Russian oligarch. “He owed us a lot of money,” Boyarkin says. “And he was offering ways to pay it back.”
The former Russian intelligence officer says he has been approached by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Boyarkin’s response to those investigators? “I told them to go dig a ditch,” he says.
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But those connections could be potentially important to the Special Counsel’s inquiry. They would mark some of the clearest evidence of the leverage that powerful Russians had over Trump’s campaign chairman. And they may shed light on why Manafort discussed going right back to work for pro-Russian interests in Eastern Europe after he crashed out of the Trump campaign in August 2016, according to numerous sources in the TIME investigation.
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In a series of emails sent that spring and summer, Manafort tried to offer “private briefings” about the presidential race to Deripaska, apparently, as one of the emails puts it, to “get whole.” Reports in The Atlantic and the Washington Post revealed those emails in the fall of 2017. Among the questions that remained unanswered was the identity of Manafort’s contact in Moscow, the one referred to in one of the emails as “our friend V.”
Time says "V" was hard to find.
Only in early October was a TIME reporter able to track Boyarkin down. In the company of a senior Russian diplomat and two young assistants from Moscow, he attended a conference in Greece that was organized by one of Putin’s oldest friends, the former KGB agent and state railway boss Vladimir Yakunin. “How did you find me here,” was the question Boyarkin asked, repeatedly, when confronted about his ties to Manafort during a coffee break at that conference.
Once he agreed to discuss their relationship, it was mostly to confirm the basic facts, often with a curt, “Yes, so what.” ...
The outlines of Boyarkin’s career suggest a life spent at the intersection of Russian espionage, diplomacy and the arms trade ...
Manafort worked for Deripaska as far back as 2006 on a Kremlin-approved referendum that allowed Montenegro to break away from Serbia and declare its independence. But then Montenegro's leaders ran afoul of the oligarch.
After years of disputes over unpaid debts, the Russian billionaire sued Montenegro in 2014 for seizing the aluminum plant he controlled. The country then sped up its plans to join the NATO military alliance and integrate with the West.
The Kremlin wasn’t pleased. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in 2014 it would be “irresponsible” and “even a provocation” for another Balkan state to become a NATO member. According to investigators in Montenegro, Russian agents soon began plotting to unseat the nation’s leaders and install a government more friendly to Moscow. By coincidence, the dispute came to a head in the fall of 2016, at the same time as the U.S. presidential race.
About three weeks before the American elections, the people of Montenegro were due to hold a pivotal vote of their own. Depending on the outcome, the government would either shepherd the country into the NATO alliance the following year, or a new set of leaders would take power, most of whom wanted to change course and develop closer ties with Russia.
According to three sources in this opposition movement, known in Montenegro as the Democratic Front, they were counting on help from an American lobbyist who had worked in their country before – and who happened to be fresh out of a job in Washington. His name was Paul Manafort.
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According to the sanctions list posted Dec. 19, Deripaska and Boyarkin were “involved in providing Russian financial support to a Montenegrin political party ahead of Montenegro’s 2016 elections.”
In more than a dozen interviews that TIME conducted this year, officials and political leaders in Montenegro confirmed that Deripaska and one other Russian oligarch bankrolled the pro-Russian opposition in 2016. Two of them said they heard Manafort’s name come up in strategy meetings for that opposition movement.
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It remains unclear whether Manafort actually provided any services in Montenegro in 2016. His lawyers deny he did any work for any Montenegrin politicians that year. Nor is it clear whether Manafort owes debts to Deripaska and, if so, how much ...
Boyarkin, for his part, denies having anything to do with Montenegrin politics. When TIME met him in Greece, he said he had not worked for Deripaska since the end of 2016. The U.S. government differs on that point; the Dec. 19 press release from the Treasury Department said Boyarkin “reports directly to Deripaska and has led business negotiations on Deripaska’s behalf.”
Exclusive: Russian Ex-Spy Pressured Manafort Over Debts to an Oligarch (Time)