Bayrock Group

Columbus Nova

Donald Trump Dossier

En+ Group

EuroSibEnergo

Fancy Bear

FSB

GRU

HRAGI: Human Rights Accountabliity Global Initiative

Internet Research Agency

KGB

Kremlin

Magnitsky Act

Ministry of Internal Affairs

Oligarchs

Prevezon Holdings

Project Lakhta

Renova Group

Rusal

Trump Tower Meeting

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Click here to look up an acronym

Choose one of the categories below to narrow your choice

All Terms

General Terms

Constitution

Court Decisions

Crime & Law Enforcement

Economy

Education

Elections

Energy

Environment

Finance, Banking, and Consumers

Hate and Racism

Health and Medical

Health Care

Holidays

Housing

Immigration

International

Labor

Law Making

Legal System

Legislation and Programs

National Security

Organizations: Company

Organizations: Government

Organizations: Non-Government

People

People: Congress

People: Federal Judges

People: Foreign

People: Russia

People: U.S. Presidents

Places

Politics

States

Taxes

Technology

Transportation

Bayrock Group

A real estate company. It was founded in 2001 by Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official from Kazakhstan.

Its main offices are in New York's Trump Tower.

From 2003 - 2008, Bayrock worked to develop several properties for the Trump Organization.

Columbus Nova

U.S. financial company. Though an investment company, it has not been registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) since 2012.

Columbus Nova's chief executive officer is Andrew Intrater - a cousin of Viktor Vekselberg. Vekselberg owns the Russian company Renova Group.

A shadowy link to Renova Group

Columbus Nova claims that Renova Group is its largest client, and denies that the Russian company or Vekselberg has ever had an ownership role. But evidence suggests a much more interwoven relationship. This includes SEC filings, which described Columbus Nova as an affiliate of Renova.

The website for Columbus Nova previously had this biography of Intrater, stating that "he is a former Director and current Member of the Executive Board of Renova Group".


Via WayBackMachine link:
web.archive.org/web/20180509003139/http:/www.columbusnova.com/andrew_intrater.html

The Russian website of Renova previously listed Columbus Nova as part of its group structure.

Both companies have since removed the cross references. Columbus Nova's biography of Intrater was removed in April 2018 - around the time that Renova and Vekselberg were becoming subject to U.S. sanctions.

For more on Columbus Nova, read the Forbes story.

For more on the connections between Columbus Nova and Renova, read this Mother Jones story and this CNN story.

Donald Trump Dossier

A 35-page collection of memos that was the result of a private investigation into Russian connections to Donald Trump.

Political research company Fusion GPS was hired in 2015 to perform the research. It was hired by the Washington Free Beacon - a conservative publication - to help defeat Donald Trump in the Republican primary.

After Trump won the primary, the Free Beacon ended its deal. Fusion GPS then was hired on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign.

In 2016, Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele to perform the research. For that reason, the dossier also is referred to as the Steele Dossier.

Click here to view the dossier.

En+ Group

A Russian holding company.

It has significant ownership of Rusal and EuroSibEnergo.

EuroSibEnergo

A major Russian power-producing company.

Fancy Bear

A hacking group that typically works in ways that support the Russian government.

For more on Fancy Bear and other Russian hacking organizations, read the Guardian story.

FSB

The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) is Russia's primary security agency.

It is the agency that succeeded the KGB.

GRU

Russia's military intelligence organization.

GRU is an acronym for its Russian name, which translates to Main Intelligence Directorate.

HRAGI: Human Rights Accountabliity Global Initiative

A U.S. organization created and funded by Russians to lobby against the Magnitsky Act - which bans certain Russians from the U.S. and denies them access to their wealth stored in U.S. banks.

The domain for the organization - hragi.org - expired in March 2018.

For more, read the Bloomberg story.

Internet Research Agency

A company based in St. Petersburg, Russia that publishes social media posts attempting to influence political campaigns and discussions.

They typically make these posts pretending to be someone else, and often attempt to incite controversy where none existed before.

The agency was charged in a 2018 indictment with attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election.

For more, read the Slate story.

KGB

The main internal security and intelligence agency (as well as secret police) of the former Soviet Union.

It operated from 1954 - 1991.

Kremlin

The home of the Russian president.

It also is used to refer to the Russian government, similarly to the way White House is used to refer to the executive branch of the U.S. government.

Magnitsky Act

2012 law that prohibits certain Russian officials from entering the United States or accessing illegally obtained money they have in U.S. banks.

It was named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison after uncovering a money laundering scheme in which Russian mobsters brought millions of dollars into the U.S. by buying New York luxury properties.

The Russian government retaliated for the law by banning Americans from adopting Russian orphans.

For more, read the Washington Post story.

Click here for more information about the Magnitsky Act.

Ministry of Internal Affairs

Russian national police force that maintains the country's labor camps.

For more, read the U.S. Marines report.

Oligarchs

A group of well-connected businessmen who made their fortunes largely through the privatization of natural resources and other state-owned assets after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Some oligarchs lost their influence in a power-struggle with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the early 2000s, others reached bargains with the president, and a new group of oligarchs allied to Putin emerged.

Prevezon Holdings

Russian real estate company accused of laundering Russian taxpayer money to the United States by purchasing real estate in New York. It is estimated that $230 million was taken by Prevezon and others.

The scheme had been uncovered by Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who later died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) settled with Prevezon for $6 million in May. Just two months prior to the settlement, President Donald Trump fired Preet Bharara - the federal attorney who had been investigating the case for the previous four years.

Project Lakhta

Russian effort to spread false and inflammatory information on social media in order to create artificial divisions among Americans and influence U.S. elections.

According to a 2018 criminal complaint, the project had a budget in the tens of millions of dollars (not all directed at the United States) and was funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin - who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Renova Group

A large Russian holding company owned by Viktor Vekselberg.

Renova has a shadowy relationship with U.S. financial company Columbus Nova, which is run by Vekselberg's cousin Andrew Intrater.

Columbus Nova was formed as a subsidiary of Renova, but the two companies began to disavow any connection beyond a client relationship around the time that U.S sanctions were imposed on Renova and Vekselberg.

For more, read the Mother Jones article.

Rusal

One of the world's largest aluminum companies. Its headquarters are in Moscow, Russia.

It was founded by Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Trump Tower Meeting

A June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower.

The main participants in the meeting were Donald Trump Jr. and Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya.

It officially was arranged by Rob Goldstone, who is an agent for Russian musician Emin Agalarov. Agalarov's father, Aras Agalarov, has close ties with the Russian government.

It's likely that Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya came to the meeting with different agendas. Goldstone's proposal to Trump Jr. offered "official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia."

Veselnitskaya - who founded a Russian organization to fight U.S. sanctions against Russia imposed under the Magnitsky Act - is said to have come to discuss having those sanctions eliminated.

Trump Jr. initially had said the meeting was about "Russian adoptions". The barring of Russian adoptions to the United States was a retaliatory action by Russia to the Magnitsky Act.

Aside from Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, other known attendees at the meeting were...

For more, read the News in FiVe story.

                   Tell us if we goofed                                                  Copyright