Rosneft allocates millions to the nonprofit foundation run by Vladimir Putin's suspected younger daughter

According to public procurement records available online, the state-owned oil company Rosneft has allocated 28 million rubles ($427,280) to Katerina Tikhonova’s National Intellectual Development Foundation. According to reports by Bloomberg and Reuters, Tikhonova is Vladimir Putin’s younger daughter, though the Kremlin has never confirmed or denied this information.

The money was allocated to conduct patent research in the natural and technical sciences. Former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s news outlet, MBKh Media, notes that the procurement order contains no technical specifications, making it unclear what exact research Tikhonova’s foundation is supposed to carry out. The documents do say that the work must be conducted “in accordance with the priorities of the company’s innovation activity.”

The National Intellectual Development Foundation has one of the largest budgets of any nonprofit organization in Russia today, regularly competing for and winning procurement contracts with Rosneft, Transneft, and Rosatom, whose CEOs are all foundation trustees, as well. According to MBKh Media, Rosneft has allocated nearly 1 billion rubles ($15.3 million) to Tikhonova’s group over the years.