One year ago, Russia’s elite hoped for thaw between nations
In the days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a wealthy Russian pharmaceutical executive named Alexey Repik arrived in Washington, expressing excitement about the new administration.
He posted a photo on Facebook of a clutch of inauguration credentials arranged next to a white “Make America Great Again” hat, writing in Russian: “I believe that President Donald Trump will open a new page in American history.”
Repik had prime access. He wrote on Facebook that he got close enough to the presidentelect at a preinaugural event to “check the handshake strength of Donald Trump.” He and his wife, Polina Repik, witnessed Trump’s swearing-in from ticketed seats. And he posed for a photo shoulder-to-shoulder with Mike Pompeo, the president’s nominee to head the CIA, although Repik later said he was not aware of Pompeo’s intended role at the time.
Repik began his weekend in Washington by posting a photo of himself wearing official credentials in front a stage bearing a sign that declared “The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump.”
In interviews with The Post, Repik said he and his wife obtained their tickets through an American technology executive named Timothy Kasbe, who at the time was working for the Russia-based retailer Gloria Jeans. Kasbe, who now works for a company in New Zealand, donated $150,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee, records show.
Repik said they had met months earlier during a tour of Silicon Valley companies for Russian business executives that Kasbe helped host on behalf of a headhunting firm. The two became friendly and agreed to meet in Washington for the Trump festivities.
Other Russian inaugural guests included Boris Titov, a politician and business advocate who is running for president of Russia with the Kremlin’s blessing.
Trump’s inauguration was celebrated jubilantly in Moscow, where Putin supporter Konstantin Rykov hosted an all-night party. Champagne flowed as an interpreter narrated the new U.S. president’s speech.
In Washington, the Russian Embassy tweeted, “Happy #InaugurationDay2017!” with a photo of people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
The optimism was part of a larger embrace by Russia of Trump’s “America First” outlook, which emphasizes U.S. business interests and national security over promoting freedom and democracy abroad, said Ilya Zaslavskiy, a researcher who has worked with the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative.
Amid a busy schedule in Washington, Titov — who was appointed by Putin to serve as a business ombudsman — told a Russian television station that new investment was likely to flow to Russia once U.S. sanctions were lifted.
A year later, the sanctions are still in place, and the thrill of Trump’s election has faded amid an intensifying federal investigation of possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
“We hoped that a lot of things would change, that the relations would be built on equal terms, that we would be able to start a new stage in the relations between countries,” Titov said in an interview. “But unfortunately, this is not happening.”
Titov, like several of the Russian elites who attended Trump’s inauguration, declined to say how he obtained his tickets, only that they came “via our friends — entrepreneurs in the Republican Party.”
identified at least half a dozen politically connected Russians who were in Washington on Inauguration Day — including some whose presence has not been previously reported. Among them was Viktor Vekselberg, a tycoon who is closely aligned with Putin’s government.
Vekselberg heads one of Russia’s most powerful conglomerates, the Renova Group, which has investments in energy, telecom and mining. He attended Trump’s inauguration as a guest of “one of his closest American business partners,” said spokesman Andrey Shtorkh, who declined to name Vekselberg’s host.