Matthias Warnig

Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former East German Stasi officer and a Russia-based businessman who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin. He joined the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, in 1974. During the Cold War he engaged in financial crimes by attempting to infiltrate and spy against banks in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After the Stasi was disbanded as a criminal organization as a result of the fall of Communism, he was left unemployed and moved to Russia, where he took part in business ventures in cooperation with Putin, whom he had already known as a Stasi officer.[1] He is managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the Russian government and that is responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Warnig is under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project.[2] As of 2023 he is also under personal sanctions in the United Kingdom as a collaborator with the Putin regime who is "involved in destabilising Ukraine or undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine, or obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia."[3]

Matthias Warnig
Warnig in 2010
Born
Matthias Warnig

(1955-07-26) July 26, 1955
Altdöbern, East Germany
EducationThe Berlin University of Economics
Occupations
  • Businessman
  • Investor
Years active1991–present
Known forManaging Director of Nord Stream AG

Biography

He was born on 26 July 1955 in Altdöbern, Lower Lusatia, East Germany.

In 1974 Warnig started his career at the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany.[4][5][6][7] Warnig allegedly worked with KGB officer Vladimir Putin.[8][9][10][lower-alpha 1] The two men collaborated on recruiting West German citizens for the KGB.[4] Warnig, however, has denied this by saying that they met for the first time in 1991, when Putin was the head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office.[12][13]

In the late 1970s, Warnig received five years of training on how to infiltrate banks in West Germany.[14]

Warnig had apparently spied on Dresdner Bank AG in West Germany for two years in the late 1980s before he began to work in the bank.[14]

He resigned as a major from the Stasi in 1989.

Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in Saint Petersburg, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991.[15][16] Warnig became Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian's subsidiary. In 2004–05, the bank advised on the controversial forced sale of Yukos assets (see Yukos shareholders v. Russia).[4]

During violent gang wars involving the Tambov Gang while it was taking control of St. Petersburg's energy trade in the 1990s, Maria Vorontsova and her sister Katerina Tikhonova were sent by their father Vladimir Putin, who feared for their safety, to Germany where their legal guardian was Warnig.[17][18][19][20][21][22]

From 2012, Warnig led the supervisory board of Rusal but was forced to resign in 2018, when the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Rusal.[23][24]

Sanctions

Warnig and Nordstream AG were under US sanctions but the Biden administration lifted those in May 2021.[25] Sanctions were later reimposed on him on February 23, 2022, in response to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[2]

Warnig was sanctioned by the UK government in 2023 in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War. [26]

Notes
  1. On 24 January 1989, both Vladimir Putin and Matthias Warnig are in the same photo during Operation Luch which is on page 71 of Appendices of Stasi Documents from Validmir Putin, Operation Luch and Matthias Warnig: The Secret KGB-Stasi Relationship.[10] From 1985 to 1990, Putin often worked at the Dresden KGB headquarters building located at Angelikastraße 4.[11]

References

Citations
  1. "Vladimir Putin's formative German years". BBC News. 27 March 2015.
  2. "Sanctioning NS2AG, Matthias Warnig, and NS2AG's Corporate Officers". United States Department of State. 23 February 2022. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  3. "Financial Sanctions Notice" (PDF). UK Government. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
  4. Kupchinsky, Roman (15 June 2009). "Nord Stream, Matthias Warnig (codename "Arthur") and the Gazprom Lobby". Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 114. Retrieved 31 March 2022 – via Jamestown Foundation. Alternate link
  5. Eine Stasi-Karriere. Deutsche Landwirte
  6. Васильев, Иван (Vasiliev, Ivan) (7 August 2014). "Соединенные Штази: как Маттиас Варниг стал последним другом Владимира Путина на Западе" [United Stasi: how Matthias Warnig became Vladimir Putin's last friend in the West]. Forbes (in Russian). Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  7. Gieseke, Jens [in German] (1998). Wer war wer im Ministerium für Staatssicherheit? [Who was who in the Ministry for State Security?] (PDF) (in German). MfS-Handbuch V/4, Berlin. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  8. "Stasi Documents about Vladimir Putin". Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University. November 2014. Archived from the original on 22 November 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  9. "Дворец для Путина" [Palace for Putin]. navalny.com (in Russian). Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  10. Muller, Sarah-Christian; Dawisha, Karen (2014). "Appendices of Stasi Documents from Validmir Putin, Operation Luch and Matthias Warnig: The Secret KGB-Stasi Relationship" (PDF). Miami University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2014. Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  11. Yegorov, Oleg (8 August 2017). "Everything you ever wanted to know about Putin's work in East Germany". Russia Beyond (rbth.com). Archived from the original on 20 April 2022. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  12. "Report Links Putin to Dresdner". The St. Petersburg Times. 1 March 2005. Archived from the original on 13 June 2008. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  13. "Matthias Warnig: "In Russia you need a lot of patience"". Die Welt am Sonntag. Nord Stream AG. 14 January 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2009.
  14. Crawford, David (26 April 2005). "Dresdner's Man in Russia: Former Stasi Agent Enjoys Rising Career as He Helps Bank Become a Major Force". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 31 December 2019.
  15. Macrakis, Kristie (2014). Seduced by Secrets: Inside the Stasi's spy-tech world. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-183-9.
  16. Report Links Putin to Dresdner Archived 2008-06-13 at the Wayback Machine St. Petersburg Times
  17. Belton 2020, pp. 101–102, 521–522.
  18. Dawisha 2014, p. 55.
  19. Pietsch 2001.
  20. Питч 2002.
  21. "Влидимир Яковлев подозревает в Cвязях c Прганизованными Преступными Группировками: Организованные преступные группировки г. Санкт-Петербурга. 1993 - 1996 год" [Vladimir Yakovlev is Suspected of Connections with Organized Criminal Groups: Organized criminal gangs in St. Petersburg. 1993 - 1996]. Организованная Властная Группировка (ОВГ): Отечество-Вся Россия (ovg.ru) website (in Russian). 1996. Archived from the original on 2 September 2000. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  22. Chazan, Guy; Crawford, David (23 February 2005). "In From the Cold: A Friendship Forged in Spying Days Pays Dividends in Russia Today. Top Dresdener Banker's Ties Go Back to Days When They Were Agents". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 25 February 2005. Retrieved 31 March 2022. Alt URL Archive is in Russian and this archive#2 is in Russian also.
  23. Henry Meyer; Olga Tanas; Justin Sink (10 January 2022). "Why the U.S. Is Weighing Tougher Sanctions Against Russia Over Ukraine". The Washington Post. Bloomberg. Retrieved 24 January 2022. In 2018, under Trump, another round of measures in response to Russia's "malign activity around the globe" hit Deripaska's United Co. Rusal hardest
  24. Roman Goncharenko (25 January 2022). "Who is Nord Stream's Matthias Warnig, Putin's friend from East Germany?". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 24 January 2022. From 2012 to 2018, Warnig headed the supervisory board of the aluminum manufacturer RUSAL, but he had to give up this position after US sanctions were imposed on the company
  25. Andrea Shalal; Timothy Gardner; Steve Holland (19 May 2021). "U.S. waives sanctions on Nord Stream 2 as Biden seeks to mend Europe ties". Reuters. Retrieved 16 November 2021. The Biden administration waived sanctions on the company behind Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany and its chief executive [...] State Department report sent to Congress concluded that Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO, Matthias Warnig, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, engaged in sanctionable activity. But Blinken immediately waived those sanctions
  26. "CONSOLIDATED LIST OF FINANCIAL SANCTIONS TARGETS IN THE UK" (PDF). Retrieved 16 April 2023.

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