Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former East German Stasi officer and a Russia-based businessman who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin. He joined the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, in 1974. During the Cold War he engaged in financial crimes by attempting to infiltrate and spy against banks in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After the Stasi was disbanded as a criminal organization as a result of the fall of Communism, he was left unemployed and moved to Russia, where he took part in business ventures in cooperation with Putin, whom he had already known as a Stasi officer. He is managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the Russian government and that is responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Warnig is under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project. As of 2023 he is also under personal sanctions in the United Kingdom as a collaborator with the Putin regime who is "involved in destabilising Ukraine or undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine, or obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia."

Biography

He was born on 26 July 1955 in Altdöbern (Senftenberg), Lower Lusatia (Niederlausitz in German), East Germany. At 18 years old, he was the secretary of the local Free German Youth (FDJ) which was the East German equivalent to Komsomol and, before graduating from school, he joined the Communist Party of the GDR (SED), but, instead of serving in the East German Army (NVA), he underwent six months of training in the Stasi guard regiment and often is referred to as Stasi from Brandenburg. In 1974 Warnig started his career at the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, and entered its foreign intelligence (HVA) on April 1, 1975. In September 1977, he began his studies in economics at the Berlin University of Economics, which is also known as the Bruno Leuschner School of Economics, and graduated with a degree in economics in 1981. He allegedly worked as the Deputy Chief of the Science and Technology Sector (STS), which is often referred to as industrial espionage or economic espionage under Horst Vogel in A XIII of the HVA, headed the work group Department 5 (Referat 5 / SWT) and attempted to obtain information from the West about materials technology, chemistry, electronics, physics and nuclear power. Warnig allegedly worked with KGB officer Vladimir Putin. The two men collaborated on recruiting West German citizens for the KGB. Warnig, however, has denied this by saying that they met for the first time in 1991, when Putin was the head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office. In the late 1970s, Warnig received five years of training on how to infiltrate banks in West Germany. Warning was in West Germany to gain "economic enlightenment" from such companies as BASF, Rheinbraun, Data Becker, Dresdner Bank, Thyssen, Krupp, and Deutsche Bank. Warnig had apparently spied on Dresdner Bank AG in West Germany for two years in the late 1980s before he began to work in the bank. Warnig was a resident of Düsseldorf from 1986 living in an apartment in the district of Bilk as a trade representative of the GDR. He resigned as a major from the Stasi in 1989. Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in Saint Petersburg, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991. Warnig became chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian's subsidiary. In 2004–05, the bank advised on the controversial forced sale of Yukos assets (see Yukos shareholders v. Russia). Warnig is on the board of directors of Bank Rossiya which is often referred to as "Putin's Wallet". During violent gang wars involving the Tambov Gang while it was taking control of St. Petersburg's energy trade in the 1990s, Maria Vorontsova and her sister Katerina Tikhonova were sent by their father Vladimir Putin, who feared for their safety, to Germany where their legal guardian was Warnig. From 2012, Warnig led the supervisory board of Rusal but was forced to resign in 2018, when the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Rusal. According to Warning's STASI personnel file, Warning speaks French and Russian in addition to German.

Sanctions

Warnig and Nordstream AG were under US sanctions but the Biden administration lifted those in May 2021. Sanctions were later reimposed on him on February 23, 2022, in response to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Warnig was sanctioned by the UK government on 24 February 2023 in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War.

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