The ‘International Man of Mystery’ Linked to Flynn’s Lobbying Deal

1. Blog-blog-blog The ‘International Man of Mystery’ Linked to Flynn’s Lobbying Deal February 27, 2021  Dmitri “David” Zaikin made Russian energy deals with powerful officials, advised Eastern European parties drifting toward Russia, brokered condos at Toronto’s Trump Tower, and teamed up with the guy who hired Michael Flynn. More than two years ago, two men started visiting Washington to push Turkey’s agenda in the capital. They dined with dignitaries and enlisted prominent lobbying firms from both sides of the aisle. It was an unremarkable Washington story, except for one thing: the last lobbyist one of the men hired was Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s campaign adviser at the time, who was later fired as national security adviser for lying about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s client, a Turkish businessman named Ekim Alptekin, has gained attention as federal investigators examine Flynn’s apparent failures to disclose foreign contacts. But so far, the other man in the pro-Turkey efforts has largely avoided public notice. That man, Dmitri “David” Zaikin, is not registered as a foreign lobbyist and has no apparent connection to Turkey. What he does have, a ProPublica-Politico examination found, is a long track record of partnering with powerful Russian businesspeople and government officials, mostly involving energy and mining deals. More recently, Zaikin has done political work in Eastern Europe, advising parties in Albania and Macedonia that have drifted toward the Kremlin. Zaikin also has business connections to Trump. Working at a real estate agency in Toronto in the 2000s, Zaikin brokered sales in one of the city’s new high-rises: the Trump International Hotel & Tower . Perhaps coincidentally, Zaikin was also close with a Russian woman who was the exclusive agent for one of Trump’s Florida developments and who was branded “Trump’s Russian hand” by a glossy Russian magazine. Zaikin has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Alptekin and Zaikin have denied knowing each other and say Zaikin had nothing to do with Flynn’s lobbying deal. As this reporter previously reported in Politico, three people with direct knowledge said Alptekin and Zaikin collaborated on Turkish lobbying, jointly steering the work. Zaikin referred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment. Flynn’s lawyer didn’t answer requests for comment. The White House referred questions to Trump’s outside lawyer, whose spokesman also did not respond to a request for comment. Zaikin says he was born in 1967 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In an earlier email to Politico, he wrote that his family long faced anti-Semitic persecution in their homeland and that they fled the collapsing USSR for Canada in 1990. “Mr. Zaikin reserves nothing but contempt for the Soviet government, and whatever vestiges of it may still exist,” his lawyer, Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, wrote to Politico. But Zaikin gave a different account to Geoffrey P. Cowley, a British engineer who was his business partner from 2010 until they split in 2016. Cowley said he never heard Zaikin claim his family was persecuted, nor had he heard Zaikin criticize the former Soviet Union. “That might be the official line,” Cowley said. Instead, according to Cowley, Zaikin had said his father was in the Soviet military or diplomatic corps. “When he was with me, whoever I wanted to see, David would pick up the telephone and I got to see him,” Cowley said, naming officials in Albania, Serbia and Guinea as examples. “That doesn’t happen with some Jewish refugee out of Ukraine who doesn’t know anybody.” Settling in Toronto, Zaikin was active in the community of Jews from the former Soviet Union. He soon became a real estate agent, eventually with an upscale brokerage. He marketed properties to Russian buyers. He married a woman from St. Petersburg and had three children. In 2002, Zaikin started a side gig. He became chairman of Siberian Energy Group, which was incorporated in Nevada and was listed over-the-counter on NASDAQ. The company’s archived website notes Zaikin’s “extensive ties to Russia’s business community, as well as to federal and regional government authorities.” Zaikin worked to help the governor of the western Siberian province of Kurgan attract Western investors for energy exploration and infrastructure, according to Tim Peara, whom Zaikin hired to help raise money in the United Kingdom. “He did the government of Kurgan a lot of favors in terms of helping to raise money for them,” Peara said. The governor reported directly to President Vladimir Putin, according to a company press release. The region’s prospects didn’t pan out: Zaikin’s company never pumped a single barrel of oil or cubic foot of gas, according to disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC repeatedly queried the company about its financial dealings, specifically about its payments to Russian executives and consultants in shares and options whose values were opaque or shifting. “We note that although you describe various transactions utilizing common stock of the company, it is not clear from your disclosures how the value of such stock for each transaction was determined,” SEC officials wrote in one letter. In 2006, Siberian Energy Group used shares worth $2.7 million to buy a Russian company, Kondaneftegaz. Less than two years later, Zaikin’s company sold significant stakes in Kondaneftegaz to two Russian investors for just $10 each. Kondaneftegaz had actually been awarded two additional drilling licenses before those sales, according to SEC reports. Zaikin previously told Politico that he was “not involved” in that transaction, though his signature appears on the purchase and sale agreements filed with the SEC.  Dmitri “David” Zaikin made Russian energy deals with powerful officials, advised Eastern European parties drifting toward Russia, brokered condos at Toronto’s Trump Tower, and teamed up with the guy who hired Michael Flynn. More than two years ago, two men started visiting Washington to push Turkey’s agenda in the capital. They dined with dignitaries and enlisted prominent lobbying firms from both sides of the aisle. It was an unremarkable Washington story, except for one thing: the last lobbyist one of the men hired was Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s campaign adviser at the time, who was later fired as national security adviser for lying about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s client, a Turkish businessman named Ekim Alptekin, has gained attention as federal investigators examine Flynn’s apparent failures to disclose foreign contacts. But so far, the other man in the pro-Turkey efforts has largely avoided public notice. That man, Dmitri “David” Zaikin, is not registered as a foreign lobbyist and has no apparent connection to Turkey. What he does have, a ProPublica-Politico examination found, is a long track record of partnering with powerful Russian businesspeople and government officials, mostly involving energy and mining deals. More recently, Zaikin has done political work in Eastern Europe, advising parties in Albania and Macedonia that have drifted toward the Kremlin. Zaikin also has business connections to Trump. Working at a real estate agency in Toronto in the 2000s, Zaikin brokered sales in one of the city’s new high-rises: the Trump International Hotel & Tower . Perhaps coincidentally, Zaikin was also close with a Russian woman who was the exclusive agent for one of Trump’s Florida developments and who was branded “Trump’s Russian hand” by a glossy Russian magazine. Zaikin has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Alptekin and Zaikin have denied knowing each other and say Zaikin had nothing to do with Flynn’s lobbying deal. As this reporter previously reported in Politico, three people with direct knowledge said Alptekin and Zaikin collaborated on Turkish lobbying, jointly steering the work. Zaikin referred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment. Flynn’s lawyer didn’t answer requests for comment. The White House referred questions to Trump’s outside lawyer, whose spokesman also did not respond to a request for comment. Zaikin says he was born in 1967 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In an earlier email to Politico, he wrote that his family long faced anti-Semitic persecution in their homeland and that they fled the collapsing USSR for Canada in 1990. “Mr. Zaikin reserves nothing but contempt for the Soviet government, and whatever vestiges of it may still exist,” his lawyer, Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, wrote to Politico. But Zaikin gave a different account to Geoffrey P. Cowley, a British engineer who was his business partner from 2010 until they split in 2016. Cowley said he never heard Zaikin claim his family was persecuted, nor had he heard Zaikin criticize the former Soviet Union. “That might be the official line,” Cowley said. Instead, according to Cowley, Zaikin had said his father was in the Soviet military or diplomatic corps. “When he was with me, whoever I wanted to see, David would pick up the telephone and I got to see him,” Cowley said, naming officials in Albania, Serbia and Guinea as examples. “That doesn’t happen with some Jewish refugee out of Ukraine who doesn’t know anybody.” Settling in Toronto, Zaikin was active in the community of Jews from the former Soviet Union. He soon became a real estate agent, eventually with an upscale brokerage. He marketed properties to Russian buyers. He married a woman from St. Petersburg and had three children. In 2002, Zaikin started a side gig. He became chairman of Siberian Energy Group, which was incorporated in Nevada and was listed over-the-counter on NASDAQ. The company’s archived website notes Zaikin’s “extensive ties to Russia’s business community, as well as to federal and regional government authorities.” Zaikin worked to help the governor of the western Siberian province of Kurgan attract Western investors for energy exploration and infrastructure, according to Tim Peara, whom Zaikin hired to help raise money in the United Kingdom. “He did the government of Kurgan a lot of favors in terms of helping to raise money for them,” Peara said. The governor reported directly to President Vladimir Putin, according to a company press release. The region’s prospects didn’t pan out: Zaikin’s company never pumped a single barrel of oil or cubic foot of gas, according to disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC repeatedly queried the company about its financial dealings, specifically about its payments to Russian executives and consultants in shares and options whose values were opaque or shifting. “We note that although you describe various transactions utilizing common stock of the company, it is not clear from your disclosures how the value of such stock for each transaction was determined,” SEC officials wrote in one letter. In 2006, Siberian Energy Group used shares worth $2.7 million to buy a Russian company, Kondaneftegaz. Less than two years later, Zaikin’s company sold significant stakes in Kondaneftegaz to two Russian investors for just $10 each. Kondaneftegaz had actually been awarded two additional drilling licenses before those sales, according to SEC reports. Zaikin previously told Politico that he was “not involved” in that transaction, though his signature appears on the purchase and sale agreements filed with the SEC.  Dmitri “David” Zaikin made Russian energy deals with powerful officials, advised Eastern European parties drifting toward Russia, brokered condos at Toronto’s Trump Tower, and teamed up with the guy who hired Michael Flynn. More than two years ago, two men started visiting Washington to push Turkey’s agenda in the capital. They dined with dignitaries and enlisted prominent lobbying firms from both sides of the aisle. It was an unremarkable Washington story, except for one thing: the last lobbyist one of the men hired was Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s campaign adviser at the time, who was later fired as national security adviser for lying about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s client, a Turkish businessman named Ekim Alptekin, has gained attention as federal investigators examine Flynn’s apparent failures to disclose foreign contacts. But so far, the other man in the pro-Turkey efforts has largely avoided public notice. That man, Dmitri “David” Zaikin, is not registered as a foreign lobbyist and has no apparent connection to Turkey. What he does have, a ProPublica-Politico examination found, is a long track record of partnering with powerful Russian businesspeople and government officials, mostly involving energy and mining deals. More recently, Zaikin has done political work in Eastern Europe, advising parties in Albania and Macedonia that have drifted toward the Kremlin. Zaikin also has business connections to Trump. Working at a real estate agency in Toronto in the 2000s, Zaikin brokered sales in one of the city’s new high-rises: the Trump International Hotel & Tower . Perhaps coincidentally, Zaikin was also close with a Russian woman who was the exclusive agent for one of Trump’s Florida developments and who was branded “Trump’s Russian hand” by a glossy Russian magazine. Zaikin has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Alptekin and Zaikin have denied knowing each other and say Zaikin had nothing to do with Flynn’s lobbying deal. As this reporter previously reported in Politico, three people with direct knowledge said Alptekin and Zaikin collaborated on Turkish lobbying, jointly steering the work. Zaikin referred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment. Flynn’s lawyer didn’t answer requests for comment. The White House referred questions to Trump’s outside lawyer, whose spokesman also did not respond to a request for comment. Zaikin says he was born in 1967 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In an earlier email to Politico, he wrote that his family long faced anti-Semitic persecution in their homeland and that they fled the collapsing USSR for Canada in 1990. “Mr. Zaikin reserves nothing but contempt for the Soviet government, and whatever vestiges of it may still exist,” his lawyer, Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, wrote to Politico. But Zaikin gave a different account to Geoffrey P. Cowley, a British engineer who was his business partner from 2010 until they split in 2016. Cowley said he never heard Zaikin claim his family was persecuted, nor had he heard Zaikin criticize the former Soviet Union. “That might be the official line,” Cowley said. Instead, according to Cowley, Zaikin had said his father was in the Soviet military or diplomatic corps. “When he was with me, whoever I wanted to see, David would pick up the telephone and I got to see him,” Cowley said, naming officials in Albania, Serbia and Guinea as examples. “That doesn’t happen with some Jewish refugee out of Ukraine who doesn’t know anybody.” Settling in Toronto, Zaikin was active in the community of Jews from the former Soviet Union. He soon became a real estate agent, eventually with an upscale brokerage. He marketed properties to Russian buyers. He married a woman from St. Petersburg and had three children. In 2002, Zaikin started a side gig. He became chairman of Siberian Energy Group, which was incorporated in Nevada and was listed over-the-counter on NASDAQ. The company’s archived website notes Zaikin’s “extensive ties to Russia’s business community, as well as to federal and regional government authorities.” Zaikin worked to help the governor of the western Siberian province of Kurgan attract Western investors for energy exploration and infrastructure, according to Tim Peara, whom Zaikin hired to help raise money in the United Kingdom. “He did the government of Kurgan a lot of favors in terms of helping to raise money for them,” Peara said. The governor reported directly to President Vladimir Putin, according to a company press release. The region’s prospects didn’t pan out: Zaikin’s company never pumped a single barrel of oil or cubic foot of gas, according to disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC repeatedly queried the company about its financial dealings, specifically about its payments to Russian executives and consultants in shares and options whose values were opaque or shifting. “We note that although you describe various transactions utilizing common stock of the company, it is not clear from your disclosures how the value of such stock for each transaction was determined,” SEC officials wrote in one letter. In 2006, Siberian Energy Group used shares worth $2.7 million to buy a Russian company, Kondaneftegaz. Less than two years later, Zaikin’s company sold significant stakes in Kondaneftegaz to two Russian investors for just $10 each. Kondaneftegaz had actually been awarded two additional drilling licenses before those sales, according to SEC reports. Zaikin previously told Politico that he was “not involved” in that transaction, though his signature appears on the purchase and sale agreements filed with the SEC.  Dmitri “David” Zaikin made Russian energy deals with powerful officials, advised Eastern European parties drifting toward Russia, brokered condos at Toronto’s Trump Tower, and teamed up with the guy who hired Michael Flynn. More than two years ago, two men started visiting Washington to push Turkey’s agenda in the capital. They dined with dignitaries and enlisted prominent lobbying firms from both sides of the aisle. It was an unremarkable Washington story, except for one thing: the last lobbyist one of the men hired was Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s campaign adviser at the time, who was later fired as national security adviser for lying about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador. Flynn’s client, a Turkish businessman named Ekim Alptekin, has gained attention as federal investigators examine Flynn’s apparent failures to disclose foreign contacts. But so far, the other man in the pro-Turkey efforts has largely avoided public notice. That man, Dmitri “David” Zaikin, is not registered as a foreign lobbyist and has no apparent connection to Turkey. What he does have, a ProPublica-Politico examination found, is a long track record of partnering with powerful Russian businesspeople and government officials, mostly involving energy and mining deals. More recently, Zaikin has done political work in Eastern Europe, advising parties in Albania and Macedonia that have drifted toward the Kremlin. Zaikin also has business connections to Trump. Working at a real estate agency in Toronto in the 2000s, Zaikin brokered sales in one of the city’s new high-rises: the Trump International Hotel & Tower . Perhaps coincidentally, Zaikin was also close with a Russian woman who was the exclusive agent for one of Trump’s Florida developments and who was branded “Trump’s Russian hand” by a glossy Russian magazine. Zaikin has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Alptekin and Zaikin have denied knowing each other and say Zaikin had nothing to do with Flynn’s lobbying deal. As this reporter previously reported in Politico, three people with direct knowledge said Alptekin and Zaikin collaborated on Turkish lobbying, jointly steering the work. Zaikin referred questions to his lawyer, who declined to comment. Flynn’s lawyer didn’t answer requests for comment. The White House referred questions to Trump’s outside lawyer, whose spokesman also did not respond to a request for comment. Zaikin says he was born in 1967 in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In an earlier email to Politico, he wrote that his family long faced anti-Semitic persecution in their homeland and that they fled the collapsing USSR for Canada in 1990. “Mr. Zaikin reserves nothing but contempt for the Soviet government, and whatever vestiges of it may still exist,” his lawyer, Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, wrote to Politico. But Zaikin gave a different account to Geoffrey P. Cowley, a British engineer who was his business partner from 2010 until they split in 2016. Cowley said he never heard Zaikin claim his family was persecuted, nor had he heard Zaikin criticize the former Soviet Union. “That might be the official line,” Cowley said. Instead, according to Cowley, Zaikin had said his father was in the Soviet military or diplomatic corps. “When he was with me, whoever I wanted to see, David would pick up the telephone and I got to see him,” Cowley said, naming officials in Albania, Serbia and Guinea as examples. “That doesn’t happen with some Jewish refugee out of Ukraine who doesn’t know anybody.” Settling in Toronto, Zaikin was active in the community of Jews from the former Soviet Union. He soon became a real estate agent, eventually with an upscale brokerage. He marketed properties to Russian buyers. He married a woman from St. Petersburg and had three children. In 2002, Zaikin started a side gig. He became chairman of Siberian Energy Group, which was incorporated in Nevada and was listed over-the-counter on NASDAQ. The company’s archived website notes Zaikin’s “extensive ties to Russia’s business community, as well as to federal and regional government authorities.” Zaikin worked to help the governor of the western Siberian province of Kurgan attract Western investors for energy exploration and infrastructure, according to Tim Peara, whom Zaikin hired to help raise money in the United Kingdom. “He did the government of Kurgan a lot of favors in terms of helping to raise money for them,” Peara said. The governor reported directly to President Vladimir Putin, according to a company press release. The region’s prospects didn’t pan out: Zaikin’s company never pumped a single barrel of oil or cubic foot of gas, according to disclosures filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC repeatedly queried the company about its financial dealings, specifically about its payments to Russian executives and consultants in shares and options whose values were opaque or shifting. “We note that although you describe various transactions utilizing common stock of the company, it is not clear from your disclosures how the value of such stock for each transaction was determined,” SEC officials wrote in one letter. In 2006, Siberian Energy Group used shares worth $2.7 million to buy a Russian company, Kondaneftegaz. Less than two years later, Zaikin’s company sold significant stakes in Kondaneftegaz to two Russian investors for just $10 each. Kondaneftegaz had actually been awarded two additional drilling licenses before those sales, according to SEC reports. Zaikin previously told Politico that he was “not involved” in that transaction, though his signature appears on the purchase and sale agreements filed with the SEC. 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