Deal To End Ukraine War Now Includes Multibillion-Dollar Sale Of Lukoil International Assets, Report Says.
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The talks between the Trump administration and Russia to end the Ukraine war are now including the multibillion-dollar sale of Lukoil’s international assets to benefit Middle Eastern investors with ties to two of the main U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, The New York Times reported Saturday.
President Vladimir Putin brought up the sale during his meeting with the two envoys at the Kremlin on September 5, The Times reported, citing three people familiar with the meeting. The Russian leader presented the sale as a means to demonstrate to Russians that they could continue to do business with the U.S. after a number of sanctions were imposed by the country.
Witkoff and Kushner told Putin that they would work on the deal, mentioning the potential of completing the sale to help build goodwill with the Kremlin and to help bring down global energy prices, the report said.
Lukoil agreed in January to sell its international assets to the private equity firm Carlyle in a deal valued at around $20 billion to $22 billion for the overseas holdings of one of Russia’s largest oil companies, including oil fields, refineries and gas stations. The sale is still subject to approval from the U.S., which imposed the sanctions that made it difficult for the Russian owners of Lukoil to continue to operate the assets abroad.
The leading rival bid for the assets comes from Todd Boehly, a billionaire asset manager and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers who has donated $2 million to President Trump’s political campaigns, The Times reported, citing the Financial Times.
Boehly is offering to buy the assets as part of a group that includes the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, an arm of the federal government, which is expected to take a mid-teens equity stake in the deal, an Abu Dhabi investment vehicle linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser, and the conglomerate controlled by brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat of Qatar, The Times and the Financial Times reported on Saturday.
There is no indication that Kushner or Witkoff will personally profit from the sale, The Times reported. However, The Times said that there are extensive overlapping ties between partners of Boehly’s investor group and Trump’s circle of friends and associates.
The brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, for example, partnered with Kushner and Ivanka Trump on a planned luxury resort in Albania on the Mediterranean Sea. A fund controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon took a stake in Affinity Partners, the firm founded by Kushner after he left the White House as Trump’s senior advisor.
Another vehicle linked to the Sheikh holds an equity position in World Liberty Financial, the cryptocurrency company founded by the Trump family and run in part by Witkoff’s son. The deal needs U.S. approval to lift the sanctions from the assets that would immediately raise their value to the buyers in Moscow.
Even though formally a private company, the decision on the sale is widely seen as being up to Putin. A senior administration official told The Times that Witkoff and Kushner had helped the administration to negotiate the federal government’s terms for the deal which include an upfront payment and a profits interest for the U.S. Business talks with Putin, the administration has argued, could help end the war in Ukraine.
Some of the deals could even be completed before a larger overall settlement is reached, the paper reported, citing eight sources who described the Lukoil talks to the paper. The deal still requires approval from both Washington and the Kremlin.
