Gennady Nikolayevich Timchenko is a Russian oligarch and billionaire businessman. He founded and owns the private investment firm Volga Group. He was previously a co-owner of Gunvor Group.
Timchenko in 2018
Russian oligarchs are business oligarchs of the former Soviet republics who rapidly accumulated wealth in the 1990s via the Russian privatisation that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The failing Soviet state left the ownership of state assets contested, which allowed for informal deals with former USSR officials as a means to acquire state property.
Putin (left), with Mikhail Khodorkovsky (right) in December 2002. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was jailed the following year.
Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg in 2015
Putin (left) with Oleg Deripaska (right) in the Kremlin in March 2002
Putin (left), with Petr Fradkov (right) in the Kremlin in May 2019