A financial analyst has been fired in Russia a day after publishing a report saying that Russian gas pipeline contracts are designed to benefit oligarchs allied with President Vladimir Putin.
Sberbank analysts Anna Kotelnikova and Alexander Fak’s report said that the decisions of state-run energy firm Gazprom become “very clear once we assume that the company is managed in the interests of its contractors, and not for extracting commercial profits,” the bne IntelliNews business outlet reported.
“Dear all — I was dismissed today for writing the recent report on Gazprom,” Fak wrote in an email cited by Russian journalist Yelena Tofanyuk’s Telegram channel.
The head of Sberbank’s corporate investment department Igor Bulantsev told the RBC business portal that the company was “dealing with an unprofessional report.”
The spokespersons for billionaires Gennady Timchenko and Arkady Rotenberg, whose companies were named as the main beneficiaries of Gazprom’s gas pipeline contracts, denied requesting Fak’s dismissal.
“That would have reeked of something out of the Middle Ages,” RBC quoted Timchenko’s spokesperson as saying.
