Billionaires are not usually happy to play second fiddle, but Eugene Shvidler has for decades operated under the shadow of his more famous (not to mention richer) business partner, Roman Abramovich.
That close association has now caught up with him, with Shvidler added to the UK’s sanctions list on Thursday as part of the response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The UK government said Shvidler, whose fortune is valued at $1.6bn by Forbes, was a “longstanding business partner” of Abramovich, and that through his shares in the oligarch’s Evraz metals and mining business, he had “been involved in obtaining a benefit from or supporting the government of Russia”.
Shvidler had two weeks’ notice that he could be in the government’s sights, after he was named in Abramovich’s designation for sanctions on 10 March. A day earlier, the UK impounded a Bombardier Global 6500 private jet thought to be linked to Shvidler because of suspected ties to Russia.
The UK is uniquely placed to target Russia’s oligarchs, given their attraction to trophy properties in “Londongrad” and the home counties. Like several others on the sanctions lists, Shvidler is the owner of a Surrey mansion beside the exclusive St George’s Hill estate, and he is thought to have sold another £22m property in Belgravia, central London.
Yet Shvidler also has an unusual distinction among the oligarchs hit by sanctions: he claims to be a citizen of the US and UK since 1994 and 2010 respectively and never to have held a Russian passport.
His homeland was called the USSR when Shvidler was born in 1964 to mathematician parents in Ufa, 700 miles east of Moscow. He grew up and studied engineering and applied mathematics in the capital.
“I grew up with communism, and if you live through communism you don’t love it,” he told the Observer in 2009, over a duck foie-gras lunch at his French vineyard.
Shvidler briefly left for the US to study business at Fordham University, before rejoining his childhood friend Abramovich in the oil-trading business. Their timing proved fortuitous, with huge sums made by businesspeople in allegedly underpriced privatisations of some of Russia’s most valuable mineral wealth.
The company that made the fortunes of Abramovich and Shvidler was Sibneft, one of Russia’s most valuable oil producers. Shvidler served as its president between 1998 and 2005.
Since then their business interests have remained closely intertwined. In 2005, the Russian state-owned gas firm Gazprom paid $13bn for 73% of Sibneft, to companies controlled by Millhouse Capital, a management company that Abramovich used to manage his financial interests. Shvidler is chair of another Millhouse company.
Abramovich is a large shareholder in the London-listed steel company Evraz; Shvidler served on its board until sanctions were imposed on Abramovich and trading was suspended this month. Abramovich bought Chelsea football club in 2003; Shvidler briefly served as a director of the club.
A spokesperson for Shvidler declined to comment on his addition to the UK list.
Before the sanctions, Shvidler’s spokesperson said he “is not a public person and is not party to the current events”.
He added: “Mr Shvidler would like to make it clear that, like the rest of us in Europe, he is hoping and praying for peace and an end to the senseless violence in Ukraine. We all hope that the war can be brought to an immediate end.”
