Russia’s largest oil producer, state-owned company Rosneft, is accused of employing dozens of women who provide escort services to executives, at the expense of the taxpayer.
An investigation by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF), established by the late Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, revealed that the young women held administrative positions with high salaries, without the relevant qualifications or experience.
Newsweek has contacted Rosneft for comment.
Why It Matters
Aside from the apparent wrongdoing exposed, the investigation shows that Alexi Navalny’s efforts to expose the Russian administration’s corruption under President Vladimir Putin did not die with him.
What To Know
The ACF team found in an investigation published on January 30 that “a couple dozen” young women employed by Rosneft also advertised their services on escort websites.
The women, who are all in their twenties, received salaries far exceeding those of employees with more experience, and often accompanied Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin and the company’s senior executives of trips abroad. Destinations included the Maldives, the UAE, Morocco, and Qatar.
One woman was employed as “Chief Specialist in the Corporate Property Department” and was paid a salary of 2,484,484 rubles ($24,933) last year, around the average in Moscow, but another woman was hired aged 21 to be the deputy head of Rosneft’s business management division, and was given a salary double that of her more experienced peers, ACF said. She traveled with Sechin more than 58 times over the past nine years.
She received an additional 300 million rubles ($3 million) from Independent Oil and Gas Company, which is owned by Sechin’s close friend and associate Eduard Khudainatov. She has been listed as an employee with that company since 2017, the investigation said.
“We found … a personal escort agency. A real Sechin special forces, consisting of twenty-year-old models. Escorts in the civil service,” ACF said. “Just think about it: the state company Rosneft maintains its own staff of escorts.”
Navalny, a longtime critic of Vladimir Putin, died aged 47 in an Arctic prison in February 2024, where had been jailed for three years under major fraud and contempt of court charges—widely seen as politically motivated.
Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said he felt unwell after a walk, “lost consciousness almost immediately,” and died shortly afterward. Multiple officials, including Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, have accused the Kremlin of murdering Navalny, while U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Putin didn’t directly order his killing.
What People Are Saying
The Anti-Corruption Foundation said: “Any woman has the right to make her own choices, to earn money and to control her own body as she sees fit. But the line between personal privacy and public accountability is erased the moment that you enter the civil service. And this is exactly what is happening here. The girls we’re going to talk about today are paid from the budget of a state-owned company.”
What Happens Next
Given Sechin’s close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is unlikely that an investigation will be carried out. Rosneft has yet to respond to the allegations.
Russian President Vladimir Putin applauds Rosneft President Igor Sechin during Russian-Chinese talks at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia,, June, 5, 2019.
Russian President Vladimir Putin applauds Rosneft President Igor Sechin during Russian-Chinese talks at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia,, June, 5, 2019.
Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images