WASHINGTON — Two Russian oligarchs who sought out property investments with first son Hunter Biden were again spared from another round of US sanctions targeting Russia’s economy.
Billionaires Yelena Baturina and Vladimir Yevtushenkov dodged the Biden administration’s latest list of Russian government officials and business people to face sanctions Friday — even though some of those included in this round seem to have similar credentials to the pair.
A State Department press release said the US “is imposing sanctions on or identifying as blocked property over 200 entities, individuals, vessels, and aircraft,” with an attached fact sheet identifying the targets, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on.
Those hit with new sanctions include Russian government officials and people with links to energy, mining and technology companies, including alleged sanctions-evading firms in third-party countries such as Canada, China and Iran.
Accused war criminals and suspected Ukrainian grain thieves also made the list.
“It’s alarming that Hunter Biden’s Russian oligarch pals are missing from the Treasury Department’s public sanctions list of Russian elites and oligarchs,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) to The Post.
“We need to know if [the Biden family’s] business associates are receiving preferential treatment from the Biden administration,” said Comer, who in April wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to demand answers.
Baturina, the former first lady of Moscow, accumulated her $1.3 billion fortune through a construction business during her late husband’s corrupt reign as mayor from 1992 to 2010 — and in February 2014 transferred $3.5 million to a corporate entity associated with then-second son Hunter Biden, according to a 2020 report by Senate Republican-led committees.
Yevtushenkov’s sprawling conglomerate company Sistema, controls Russia’s largest cellphone provider, MTS, and until last year owned Russian military contractors, including rocket- and radar-maker RTI and drone-manufacturer Kronstadt.
Yevtushnkov is believed to be worth about $1.7 billion and is already sanctioned by the UK and Australia.
He recently reduced his stake in Sistema to 49.2% in apparent response to UK sanctions by giving his son Feliz 10%.
“I think he should be sanctioned,” Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, told The Post in March. “I don’t understand why he has not been.”
Files from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicate he met with Baturina and Yevtushenkov on multiple occasions, and a witness placed Baturina at an April 2015 DC dinner with then-Vice President Joe Biden that was also attended by Hunter’s Ukrainian and Kazakhstani associates.
The scope of Baturina’s eventual US property investments is unclear, as is the share of proceeds that may have been shared with Hunter.
Yevtushenkov allegedly sought to cozy up to Hunter Biden because of a long-running Justice Department investigation of MTS, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange, for paying nearly $1 billion in bribes paid to Uzbekistani officials between 2004 and 2012.
Yevtushenkov has acknowledged meeting Hunter Biden at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan in March 2012, and laptop records indicate they met again in January 2013 in DC before looking at a commercial real-estate development the next day in northern Virginia.
“I asked [Yevtushenkov], ‘Why are you doing this?’ on the front end — before I understood that they were going to buy some real estate,” a source told The Post. “‘Why are you even doing this? Why would you be paying the son of the vice president to meet at a public restaurant in New York City?’
“He made it very clear to me that, you know … ‘I think it would be good to have a good relationship with this guy … maybe he can do a favor for us and we can do a favor for him,’ ” the source said. “It was a complete quid pro quo that he was going in for.”
“I told him that’s not the way it works in America, [but] he basically laughed at me and told me I was so naïve,” the source recalled of Yevtushenkov.
MTS ultimately settled the Uzbekistan corruption case with the Trump Justice Department in 2019 and paid an $850 million fine.
The NYSE froze trading of shares in the company last year.
Those who got hit with US sanctions Friday include Igor Kesaev, who was described by the US press release as “a Russian businessperson with previous investments in Russia’s arms industry.”
Kesaev, as with Yevtushenkov, had already been sanctioned by some US allies — in his case, the European Union and the UK.
Although Baturina’s extensive investments outside of Russia are speculated by some experts to be a reason she doesn’t face US sanctions, the fresh batch of sanctions specifically targets Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov’s UK real-estate holding firm Hanley Limited.
Baturina and Yevtushenkov courted the second son while his vice-president father helped lead the Obama administration’s efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin and then led the US’s Ukraine policy after Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014.
Sanctions generally freeze any assets within the grasp of American banks, cut the targets off from the international banking system and bar businesses from maintaining relationships with the designees.
Asked Friday about the omission of Baturina and Yevtushenkov from the new sanctions list, a State Department rep told The Post the agency does not comment on those not on the list.
Representatives of Hunter Biden, the White House, Baturina and Yevtushenkov did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Hunter Biden is under federal criminal investigation for alleged tax fraud, unregistered foreign lobbying, money laundering and lying about his drug use on a gun-purchase form.
Comer this month identified nine Biden family members who allegedly received cash from China, Romania and other countries — though the president was not among them.
House Republicans are seeking additional records to potentially link Joe Biden to overseas ventures steered primarily by Hunter and first brother James Biden.