Close Associate of Roman Abramovich Key Partner of UK Parliamentary Group

A businessman with ties to the sanctioned Russian oligarch is listed as a partner and advisor to a Westminster group containing senior MPs and peers

A Russian businessman with close ties to sanctioned oligarch Roman Abramovich was one of the founding partners of a UK All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), Byline Times can reveal.

Until April 2022, Sergey Bratukhin served as a director of Norilsk Nickel, appointed to the board to reportedly represent Abramovich’s Millhouse Capital. He was until recently also the president of Invest AG, a Moscow-based investment company which controls the assets of Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, who ran Russia’s largest steel producer, Evraz, and have this month been sanctioned by the UK Government. The pair are “known to be business associates of Roman Abramovich,” according to the UK Government.

Bratukhin has also sat on the board of Russian Forest Products (RFP) in which both Invest AG and Abramovich are significant shareholders. He is listed here as also being a board member of the Amur Shipping Company, which transports the forest products of parent company RFP Group. It also appears that Bratukhin is a shareholder via an investment firm in Renaissance Insurance, holding a financial stake alongside Abramovich’s Millhouse Capital, and Invest AG.

Norilsk Nickel has recently announced that it is looking to develop new Lithium mining sites that will aid the Russian war effort in Ukraine, while Bratukhin personally welcomed President Vladimir Putin on a tour of RFP facilities in Amursk in 2017. It also seems that Bratukhin appeared alongside Putin at the plenary session of the conference of regional branches of the United Russia Party – Putin’s party – in the Far Eastern Federal District in 2010.

In the West, Bratukhin calls himself Sergey Young, and portrays himself as a successful venture capital investor in bio-technology companies. He speaks at conferences around the world discussing longevity, the science of extending human lifespans through the appliance of new technology to improve diagnoses, drug efficacy and treatments.

He explained in an interview in 2021 that he “created this whole Sergey Young guy” to overcome “anti-Russian prejudices”. He added that “you need to be mentally healthy to support a couple of personas”. As shown here, the name ‘Sergey Young’ is in fact a trademark belonging to Sergey Bratukhin. Young’s LinkedIn page lists that he attended Warwick Business School, matching his profile in Norilsk Nickel annual accounts.

In the US, Bratukhin has been described as the “right hand man” of Peter Diamandis, one of the founders of the X-Prize Foundation, the world-renowned scheme that runs competitions intended to encourage technological development to benefit humanity. Bratukhin also founded Peak State Ventures, a San Francisco-based investment firm, and heads a bio-technology investment outfit called the Longevity Vision Fund.

In the UK, Bratukhin is listed as one of the sponsors/partners of the APPG for Longevity and was one of the individuals who “advised the [APPG] on all matters related to the Health of the Nation Strategy published in February 2020”. His Longevity Vision Fund is also listed on the APPG website as a “key supporter”. Bratukhin’s personal website says that he is a “Financial Advisory Board member of the UK’s All Party Parliamentary Group for Longevity, which is