Putin’s Party Lawmaker Granted Bulgarian ‘Golden Passport’

Ilshat Khairullin, a former member of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan from Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, received a Bulgarian “golden passport” in 2019. Today, Khairullin runs a multibillion-dollar business inherited from his brother Airat. Airat Khairullin was the richest member of the United Russia party in the Russian Duma before he died in a helicopter crash in 2020.

Ilshat Nazipovich Khairullin became a Bulgarian citizen by Decree 177 of December 10, 2019, file number 910/2018. A check in the Property Register and the Company Register shows that he does not own property and does not participate in companies in Bulgaria. This means that Khairullin did not invest in the real economy, but probably bought government securities or deposited money in a Bulgarian bank, as the law on Bulgarian citizenship provided at the time.

Brothers lawmakers from the United Russia party

The older brother Ilshat Khairullin was born in 1965 and began his political career in 1999 as a member of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation. In 2003 he became a member of the United Russia party and was a lawmaker for two more terms until 2014.

The younger brother Airat Khairullin was born in 1970 and at the age of 24 became the youngest elected councilman (1995-1999) in the Kazan City Council in Tatarstan. From 1999 to 2003 he was a member of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan. And from 2003 until his death in 2020, he was a member of the Russian State Duma for four consecutive terms. Since 2007, he has been a member of the United Russia party.

Airat Khairullin (front right) with Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, photo: © Dmitry Astakhov, RIA Novosti

Airat Khairullin tells a curious story from the end of 2005, which he describes as an unforgettable moment in his life: “Medvedev is looking for you”. The then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was looking for him to tell him that he and President Putin had studied his biography and had decided to appoint him Deputy Head of the Working Group on Priority Development of Agriculture.

Billionaire brothers

The Khairullin brothers’ business empire includes dozens of companies. Among them the most important are the chain of stores “Edelweiss”, the agricultural holding “Red East”, agricultural land, retail space (hypermarkets, shopping malls) and others.

According to Rusprofile, Ilshat Khairullin is the founder of over 200 companies in Russia and to this day participates in the management of the Edelweiss Corporation and Krasny Vostok. He was included in the unofficial list of millionaires in Russia in 2011, while he was a member of the United Russia party of Tatarstan.

Brothers Ilshat (left) and Airat Khairullin, photo: kzn.ru

The Russian edition of Forbes ranked Airat Khairullin 27th in the “Power and Money” ranking for 2013, and in the last one in which he was present in 2019, he was 96th among the 100 richest civil servants in Russia. His son Adel Khairullin inherited the shares of his late lawmaker father. The new Bulgarian citizen and Adel’s uncle Ilshat Khairullin continues to participate in the management of the business empire.

BIRD.BG has data on the persons who have received “golden” passports as investors and is conducting a journalistic investigation into their connections with business and politics.

Top Russian bankers are among the new Bulgarians who have received “golden passports” against investments. These are Dmitri Kushaev, Credit Suisse Head Russia, Roman Nagaev, Head of Investment, Credit & Project Finance at the Russian investment bank VTB Capital and Igor Finogenov, former Chairman of the Management Board of the Eurasian Development Bank and a person close to people in power as evidenced by his photos with former President and former Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. In the first article in the series, BIRD revealed the golden passport of Roman Savushkin, obtained at the time when he was the General Director of the United Wagon Company, a strategically important enterprise in Russia. The owner of a Russian oil company, Sergei Zakharov, also turned out to be a Bulgarian with a “golden passport”.

Russian businessman Evgeny Mulyukov, who caused a political scandal in Estonia, had received a Bulgarian “golden passport” as well, Mediapool revealed .

A hacker who has attacked Ukraine from Bulgarian territory also has received a Bulgarian “golden passport”. The goal of the attack has been demonstrating the capabilities of a cyber-attack system to a head of the Russian intelligence services.

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