The New York Post has a story up titled Feds freeze Russian oligarch’s assets, Upper East Side mansion about a house on E. 64th Street, just off 5th Avenue, owned by Oleg Deripaska, whose name has come up numerous times in Russian interference in our 2016 election, because of his closeness to Putin.
But the story has other tidbits, including that residing in that house, are the ex-wife and children of another Russian oligarch, Roman Abramovich, who as it happens owns British Premier League team Chelsea FC.
But it gets even more interesting, as you can see in these three paragraphs:
Abramovich recently transferred $92 million worth of property to his ex-wife, Dasha Zhukova, an editor and patron of the arts who listed her current address as 11 East 64th St., according to property records.
One of Zhukova’s good friends is Ivanka Trump. The two are so close that Zhukova and Abramovich often traveled and socialized with Trump and her husband, presidential son-in-law/adviser Jared Kushner, all over the world — from jet-setting hot spots in Russia and Croatia to Aspen and New York.
Zhukova is dating Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos, while Abramovich is reportedly dating Deripaska’s estranged wife, Polina Deripaska.
And another interesting connection pointed out in the story: Ukrainian-born oligarch Len Blavatnick lives just down the block from the house in question. Blavatnik’s is a name that has also come up in the exploration of interconnections, has been known to contribute to both Democratic and Republican candidates (see this Wikipedia entry) and like Abramovich is of Jewish background and known to contribute to Jewish causes (and both have connections to Israel).
To carry it a step further, although not mentioned in the article, Ivanka has been known to travel with Wendy Deng, ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, etc., who is reported to have at the time been the girlfriend of Vladimir Putin.
Somehow I am reminded of the maxim of F Scott Fitzgerald about the rich being different. In his case, he said it was because they have more money. Here we begin to see the interconnection among superrich that crosses divisions of national loyalty.
Make of it what you will.
This is a Creative Commons article. The original version of this article appeared here.
