Roman Spiridonov, who is referred to as the owner of the scandal-ridden oil trader Petroruss, which trades in Russian oil, is part of a large St. Petersburg-based group of businessmen formerly led by prominent entrepreneur Ilya Traber (Antikvar).

Spiridonov himself holds Greek citizenship, while his son, born in 2003, obtained documents in Nice, France. Petroruss DMCC is registered in Dubai and is engaged in the supply of petroleum products and chartering of maritime vessels. Petroruss’s suppliers include sanctioned entities such as Gazprom Neft, Gazprom Export, Surgutneftegaz, and Tatneft, while one of the main ports from which it loads cargo is St. Petersburg’s Ust-Luga. Petroruss tankers mainly sail to India, Brazil, and Egypt.

In effect, following the onset of the conflict, Roman Spiridonov became one of the key partners of Russian oil-producing companies in circumventing sanctions. The scheme also involves Belarusian companies: according to leaks, in 2023, corporate email belonging to the Belarusian company LLC “ChemTechEngineering” was used to purchase airline tickets for Spiridonov from St. Petersburg to Moscow. This company is a trader dealing in LPG and chemical products. It is also within Spiridonov’s business network: its email is regularly used for online purchases by Alexander Doroshenko, CEO of Spiridonov’s St. Petersburg firm Kontur-S.

It is known that prior to the conflict, one of ChemTechEngineering’s largest suppliers under foreign trade contracts was RN Trans (Rosneft). Documents from the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus in 2022 revealed that the founder of ChemTechEngineering is the Cypriot offshore company Avestra Group Holding Ltd. It is part of the large St. Petersburg-based transnational Avestra Group, which trades in petrochemical products and fertilizers. Avestra operates across China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Europe, as well as former CIS countries, the Middle and Near East, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Both the offshore entity and the company are registered to St. Petersburg resident Igor Berezin.

Berezin is another participant in the St. Petersburg trader network. In the early 2000s, he received approximately $1 million from a person named Nosyrev as a targeted loan to develop Avestra’s overseas business, after which the promissory notes ended up in the possession of Roman Spiridonov. Also working at Avestra is Irina Zavarina (who simultaneously heads Spiridonov’s Dubai-based oil trader Petroruss DMCC), according to a conclusion by Russia’s Federal Service for Intellectual Property in a corporate dispute over the ownership of the trademark between the foreign and Russian parts of Avestra.

Such a large segment of international oil trade in Russia would not be entrusted to an outsider—recall the network previously reported to be run by individuals close to Rosneft head Igor Sechin. Spiridonov, meanwhile, emerged from structures linked to Gazprom and St. Petersburg businessman Ilya Traber. Spiridonov himself is originally from Orenburg and changed his place of residence several times in the 1990s.

Spiridonov began engaging in international oil business together with Dmitry Skigin (co-founder of the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal), Alexander Dyukov (now head of Gazprom Neft), Roman Belousov (a family associate of the Skigins and beneficiary of LLC “Paid Road”), Vadim Gurinov (former head of Sibur-Russian Tires), and others. In the early 1990s, a small company in Monaco was acquired for this purpose and renamed Sotrama. At one point, Skigin Sr. headed the company.

Sotrama was the founder of several Liechtenstein-based companies, including Petroruss, and was officially engaged in maritime transport. Unofficially, according to former intelligence advisor in Monaco Robert Eringer, it was involved in laundering criminal proceeds from Russia. Through Sotrama, the foreign corporate network was connected to the Tambov organized crime group from St. Petersburg. Eringer is a controversial figure but had unique access to intelligence from European law enforcement and financial elites.

A former FBI employee, Eringer served for several years as an intelligence advisor to Prince Albert II of Monaco (with whom he later had a falling out, sued, and published disclosures that led to defamation claims). On his website, Eringer described an extensive scheme for laundering funds of oligarchs close to Putin, drawing partly on operational reports from Monaco’s Criminal Investigations Department.

An archived publication on Eringer’s website stated: “Much of the money is laundered in real estate across Western Europe through a network of questionable oil and gas distribution companies, including Sotrama, registered in Monaco, and several companies registered in Liechtenstein, including Oil Terminal, Horizon International Trading, and Petroruss, Inc.” Business partners of Sotrama head Dmitry Skigin (who died in 2003) in the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal included Ilya Traber (Antikvar) and Sergey Vasilyev.

Recently, a court nationalized the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, disregarding the previous contributions of the Skigin family to Russian elite circles. Prior to that, the terminal was at the center of a major dispute over asset redistribution, in which Roman Spiridonov was also involved. This is unsurprising, as Spiridonov, who for many years was part of a close circle of St. Petersburg businessmen, became a minority shareholder in the port back in 2015.

After the turbulent 1990s, this “powerful group” reunited in 2003 at Sibur, which at the time belonged to Gazprom: Alexander Dyukov became CEO, having previously worked in Skigin-Traber-affiliated companies, while Vadim Gurinov and Roman Belousov also joined, with Belousov becoming First Vice President of Sibur-Europe Ltd in Switzerland. According to leaks, Roman Spiridonov was also employed at Sibur-Europe Ltd, earning 1.6 million rubles in 2003—about 130,000 rubles per month.

Spiridonov’s position was clearly not a minor one. His company Petroruss has several legal entities in different countries. The first, PETRORUSS INCORPORATED, was established in 1996 in Liechtenstein, followed by a Panama-based company of the same name in 2001, and later Petroruss DMCC in the UAE, which, according to investigators, is managed by Russian national Irina Zavarina.

Petroruss in Liechtenstein was liquidated in September 2019, with local lawyer Markus Hasler handling its closure. Hasler has a notable background: years ago, he was involved in distributing communist literature in Western countries, and after the collapse of the USSR, he helped wealthy Western officials obtain benefits such as luxury hotel stays or land purchases in the Caribbean.

Thus, he was far from a случай figure in this network. By 2017–2018, he and his business partner Graham Smith were identified as heads of the Panamanian offshore company Magalo Investments, which, through a chain of entities, held a stake in LLC “St. Petersburg Paid Road”—a concession project for toll crossings in St. Petersburg worth 8 billion rubles. The project, however, has not been implemented to date, and the company was liquidated in June last year.

Horizon International Trading in Liechtenstein was also closed, again with Hasler acting as liquidator. It is known that 34% of shares in Sovex, founded by Skigin Sr., were previously registered to this company, where Alexander Dyukov once served as deputy CEO.

In 2005, suppliers to Horizon included Lukoil, Tatneft, TNK, and Gazprom Neft (then Sibneft during its rebranding). The old firm was later replaced by a new Horizon International Trading, registered in the same location (Ruggell, Liechtenstein) in 2019.

At its registration, Markus Hasler again appeared, serving on the board of directors in 2019–2020. The current board includes Pavel Reiman, and until 2024, Artem Tsobanian was also a member—a person of the same name previously headed a department at Austria’s Gazprom Neft Trading GmbH.

In recent years, one of the company’s suppliers has been LLC Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat, which in 2025 was implicated in supplying fertilizers to Dubai at below-market prices. In 2023, its counterparties included Gazpromneft-ONPZ and PJSC Gazprom Neft. Thus, the oil trading “laundering” network continues to operate.