Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former East German

Stasi The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the (),An abbreviation of . was the state security service of the East Germany from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi's function was similar to the KGB, serving as a means of maintaining state autho ...

officer and a

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

-based businessman who has worked closely with

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

. He joined Stasi, the secret police of communist

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In t ...

, in 1974. After Stasi was disbanded as a criminal organization as a result of the

fall of Communism The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Nat ...

, 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. He is managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the

Russian government The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russ ...

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 The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project.

Biography

He was born on 26 July 1955 in

Altdöbern Altdöbern (Lower Sorbian ''Stara Darbnja'') is a municipality in the Oberspreewald-Lausitz district, in southern Brandenburg, Germany. Geography Altdöbern lies in Lower Lusatia, but is not part of its sorbian inhabited area. The flat lands ...

Lower Lusatia Lower Lusatia (; ; ; szl, Dolnŏ Łużyca; ; ) is a historical region in Central Europe, stretching from the southeast of the German state of Brandenburg to the southwest of Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Like adjacent Upper Lusatia in the sou ...

. In 1974 Warnig started his career at the

, the secret police of communist East Germany. Warnig allegedly worked with KGB officer

. The two men collaborated on recruiting West German citizens for the KGB.Alternate link
/ref> 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. In the late 1970s, Warnig received five years of training on how to infiltrate banks in

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...

. Warnig had apparently spied on

Dresdner Bank Dresdner Bank AG was a German bank and was based in Frankfurt. It was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in May 2009. History 19th century The Dresdner Bank was established on 12 Novembe ...

AG in West Germany for two years in the late 1980s before he began to work in the bank. He resigned as a major from the Stasi in 1989. Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991. 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 OJSC "Yukos Oil Company" (russian: ОАО Нефтяна́я Компа́ния Ю́КОС, links=no, ) was an oil and gas company based in Moscow, Russia. Yukos was acquired from the Russian government by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkov ...

assets (see Yukos shareholders v. Russia). During violent gang wars involving the Tambov Gang while it was taking control of St. Petersburg's energy trade in the 1990s,

Maria Vorontsova Maria Vorontsova ( rus, Мария Воронцова, Mariya Vladimirovna Putina, Мария Владимировна Путина; born 28 April 1985), also referred to as Maria Faassen, is a Russian pediatric endocrinologist. She is the eld ...

and her sister Katerina Tikhonova were sent by their father Vladimir Putin, who feared for their safety, to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

where their legal guardian was Warnig. From 2012, Warnig led the supervisory board of Rusal but was forced to resign in 2018, when the

Trump administration Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...

imposed sanctions on Rusal. Warnig and Nordstream AG were under US sanctions but the Biden administration lifted those in May 2021. 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 On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

Notes

References

External links

Nord Stream, Matthias Warnig (codename "Arthur") and the Gazprom Lobby
Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 114
Matthias Warnig: "What is good for Russia is good for Germany”
by Irina Reznik, The Vedomosti 11 October 2006 (''translation at the website of Nord Stream AG, includes biography of Matthias Warnig'') {{DEFAULTSORT:Warnig, Matthias 1955 births Living people People from Altdöbern Stasi officers Yukos Gazprom people German chief executives Dresdner Bank FC Schalke 04 non-playing staff Individuals sanctioned by the United States Department of State

Biography

Notes

References

Further reading

External links