If you want to understand the story behind the story of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, you can draw a straight line back to the Yukos affair. Bruce Misamore was an oil industry exeuctive at the Yukous Oil Company who found himself with a front-row seat to the world’s largest state-sponsored theft. In this thrilling 6-part documentary, Loren Steffy, author and investigative journalist shares the story of Putin's takeover of Yukos, and how it impacted the world, with first-hand accounts from Bruce Misamore.
Putin's Oil Heist
Claim This Podcastby Loren Steffy
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7 episodes
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Podcast Overview
If you want to understand the story behind the story of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, you can draw a straight line back to the Yukos affair. Bruce Misamore was an oil industry exeuctive at the Yukous Oil Company who found himself with a front-row seat to the world’s largest state-sponsored theft. In this thrilling 6-part documentary, Loren Steffy, author and investigative journalist shares the story of Putin's takeover of Yukos, and how it impacted the world, with first-hand accounts from Bruce Misamore.
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Publishing Since
5/12/2022
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Recent Episodes
July 6, 2022
Episode 6: Connecting the Dots
“I believe that Yukos was Putin’s first foray into trying to test the West… and the West fell flat on their faces - they did absolutely nothing to help the Western shareholders in Yukos.” The lack of response from the West during the Yukos Affair encouraged Putin’s tyranny. Putin’s Oil Heist is an insider’s account of the Yukos Affair. In this final episode, Loren Steffy draws a line from the 2022 invasion of Ukraine back to the expropriation of Yukos in the early 2000s, with first-person accounts from former Chief Financial Treasurer, Bruce Misamore. Hear him talk about: The West’s inaction. Yukos, in its bid to embrace Western standards of capitalism in the hopes of gaining a New York Stock Exchange listing, hired Misamore and other American shareholders. But when Putin’s government trumped up tax charges and used them to seize the entire company without compensating those shareholders, the US government did nothing. Misamore claims they could have made government-to-government claims on behalf of the shareholders that were harmed. The West’s failure to act became a pattern in the following years, which only emboldened Putin. Putin’s grand plans. Had the invasion of Ukraine gone the way he wanted, it’s likely that Putin wouldn’t have stopped there, Misamore contends. Putin regrets the fall of the Soviet Union, and there have been hints throughout his presidency that suggest his intention to revive it. His next logical target, after Ukraine, would have been Moldova, and then the rest of Georgia. The resistance of the Ukranians seems to have halted Putin’s thirst for conquest. The Russian people. The innocent citizens of Russia are not responsible for the actions of their government. Though Putin has improved their standard of living to keep up his popularity, they could easily be talked into going the other way. However, they’re scared and docile, behavior instilled by centuries of violent history, and they fear the dire consequences of rebellion. In addition, the government’s crackdown on independent media, prevents the people from getting an accurate view of the war in Ukraine. How the Yukos Affair influenced other companies’ attempts to do business in Russia. One such situation involved a joint venture between BP and the Russian company TNK, which eventually devolved into the same tensions that pervaded the Yukos steal. The Russians bristled at Western efforts to control the operations, which led to reports of break-ins at BP executive Bob Dudley’s Moscow apartment, threats of him being detained, and even word that there was poison found in his blood. Dudley, who later became chairman of BP before retiring in 2020, wound up fleeing Russia and the venture was sold to Rosneft. Resources Loren Steffy on LinkedIn Stoney Creek Publishing
June 29, 2022
Episode 5: Fighting From Afar
“The company was liquidated in 2007.” As far as most of the world was concerned, that ended the Yukos Affair. But Bruce Misamore was still outraged at what Vladimir Putin had done to his friend and his company, and he wasn't about to stop fighting. Putin’s Oil Heist is an insider’s account of the Yukos Affair. In this episode, host Loren Steffy details Misamore’s efforts to salvage what he could of Yukos, with first-person accounts from the former Chief Financial Treasurer. Hear him talk about: The fight to recover Yukos assets outside of Russia. Misamore still wanted to return the stolen value to the company’s shareholders, despite being officially retired. The cases, which spanned the globe, were numerous, and some are still pending. The largest group of shareholders in Yukos’ Netherlands subsidiaries brought an international arbitration proceeding there in 2014 to recover pilfered assets. Russia was ordered to pay $50 billion dollars, but it appealed that decision to the Dutch Supreme Court. This was the Russians’ tactic: if they lost case, they would appeal as often as they could simply to delay cases. The European Court of Human Rights. In 2004, Misamore and a human rights attorney filed a case against Russia to the ECHR in an attempt to protect their rights. The Court agreed to hear the case in 2010, and in 2014, ruled in Yukos’ favor, saying that the Russian government’s seizure of Yukos “threatens the very integrity and legitimacy of the European Convention on Human Rights.” They ordered the Russian government to pay $2.6 billion in damages related for the Yukos seizure, the largest judgment in the court's history. The Russian Duma passed a law that disallowed Russia from honoring any case deemed unfair to them, but the ECHR did not accept the legislation’s legitimacy. Another scheme to protect Yukos. In 2005, Yukos’ executives moved all of Yukos’ international assets into two Dutch foundations they formed, called stichtings, and Misamore was a director of both. One was based in Cyprus, and the other held assets based in the Netherlands. The Russians were livid that he had managed to move Yukos’ assets beyond the government's reach, which may have been another motivation behind the burglary of Misamore’s home in Houston. Legal battles over the stichtings. Even now, Misamore is still under criminal investigation for the theft of $10 billion Yukos assets, which is what the Russians contend was the value of assets they moved into the stichtings. The stichtings were involved in two other legal battles, one of which they recently won. The remaining case involved a subsidiary of Yukos that owned their treasury shares but received no money for the shares when they were expropriated. Resources Loren Steffy on LinkedIn Stoney Creek Publishing
June 22, 2022
Episode 4: Fleeing Russia
“These were professional thugs that had been hired by the KGB, known as the FSB in Russia today, but they're still the KGB.” Even though he’d fled the country, Bruce Misamore couldn’t seem to escape Russia’s reach. Putin’s Oil Heist is an insider’s account of the Yukos Affair. In this episode, host Loren Steffy describes Misamore’s swift exit from Russia and its consequences, with first-person accounts from the former Yukos chief financial officer. Hear Misamore discuss: Leaving Russia. Saddled with crippling and, according to Misamore, illegal tax liabilities, Yukos was drifting towards insolvency. During his stay in London for an industry conference in November 2004, Misamore got a call warning him not to go back to Moscow or he would be arrested and face prosecution. He heeded the warning, but his wife was still in Russia. And she seemed to be under surveillance. Bankrupting Yukos. Convinced that the Russian government was orchestrating a scheme to either take over Yukos or seize all of the company’s oil and gas assets, Misamore began talking to lawyers about what legal recourse Yukos executives might have to stop the looting of the company. Attorney Mark Baker came up with the idea of intentionally bankrupting the company and getting it into a legitimate jurisdiction in the United States. U.S. bankruptcy laws essentially freeze time for companies while they figure out their next move. But there was a problem: a Russian company with no U.S. assets had no grounds for filing a proceeding in the United States. Stopping the auction. While Misamore was in London, the Russian government announced an auction of Yukos' principal production subsidiary, Yuganskneftegaz, to settle some of the tax claims against Yukos. Misamore hadn’t planned or prepared to flee Russia, so he hadn’t taken any documents with him. However, he realized he had all he needed to move forward with a U.S. bankruptcy case: his company laptop. As an officer of Yukos living in Houston in possession of a company asset, he had grounds for a filing. A federal bankruptcy judge agreed, ruling the filing was legitimate and that she had jurisdiction because of Misamore and his laptop. The filing created a court-issued injunction to stop the sale of Yuganskneftegaz. The plan’s contact with the enemy. Russia went ahead with the auction, but couldn’t get financing from international banks. The move caught the Kremlin off guard but it wasted no time in responding, assembling a legion of attorneys in the U.S. Ultimately, Misamore’s bankruptcy tactic failed because Russia refused to cooperate. Misamore attempted to run Yukos from London, where they had established the company’s new headquarters. Three months after Khodorkovsky’s conviction in 2006, Misamore and his wife came home after dinner in Houston to find their house had been burglarized. Among the things stolen were Misamore’s company laptop, and $30,000 worth of jewelry. Resources Loren Steffy on LinkedIn
7 total episodes available
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