Russian banker transferred South Carolina mansion to ex-wife days before U.S. sanctions hit, investigation finds

Sergey Khotimsky, the founder and co-owner of Sovcombank, transferred portions of his American real estate holdings to his former wife, Elena Baskina, at the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, allowing her to avoid U.S. sanctions, according to a joint investigation by iStories, The Post and Courier, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Sovcombank is one of Russia’s largest banks, designated as “systemically important” and ranking within the nation’s top 10 by assets. The bank controls a significant share of Russia’s banking guarantee sector, including guarantees on Defense Ministry contracts. The U.S. sanctioned Sovcombank on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, along with Russia’s largest state banks. A month later, on March 24, 2022, Washington sanctioned the bank’s co-owners, brothers Sergey and Dmitry Khotimsky, as part of broader measures against Russian elites. In December 2023, Sovcombank went public on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

Sovcombank’s top executives owned mansions at the gated Palmetto Bluff resort in South Carolina with a combined value of $22 million, reporters determined through an examination of county property records. Sergey Khotimsky and his then-wife Elena Baskina purchased homes in Palmetto Bluff in 2010.

Sanctions froze almost all of Khotimsky’s U.S. assets, except for a three-story mansion worth nearly $6 million. He transferred this property to Baskina on March 13, 2022, eleven days before he was hit with personal sanctions. Officially, Khotimsky and Baskina have been divorced since 2018. The mansion transferred to Baskina now rents for more than $2,000 per night; his other mansions remain vacant.

Commercial real estate in Georgia worth more than $37 million also avoided sanctions. These properties, now leased to retail stores and restaurants, were acquired between 2014 and 2021 by companies affiliated with Khotimsky and Baskina.

Khotimsky did not respond to requests for comment. Baskina indicated that she and her former husband had decided to revise the terms of their divorce regarding assets in the United States and Russia as early as the summer of 2021. She stated that Khotimsky completed the transfer of his remaining stakes in the Georgia real estate holding companies to her by mid-March 2022.

“I wanted all my assets and income sources to be in the U.S. and under my control in exchange for giving Russian assets to my ex-husband and waiving child support,” Baskina told reporters, adding that she has lived in the United States on a permanent basis since 2015. She also warned that publishing “any statement or suggestion” that she “participated in trying to conceal assets or establish fraudulent ownership would be harmful and unfair, because it is clearly false.”