Hubert Seipel with Vladimir Putin in 2016 (Photo: © Michael Klimentyev/Planet Pix via ZUMA Wire)
Hubert Seipel is known for documentaries and books about Russia: an investigation revealed that he received 600,000 euros from Alexei Mordashov
An investigation conducted by two organizations of investigative journalists in collaboration with newspapers such as the Washington Post and the Guardian revealed that the well-known German documentary filmmaker and journalist Hubert Seipel was funded with 600,000 euros by a Russian oligarch very close to President Vladimir Putin. Between 2018 and 2019, Alexei Mordashov would have paid this amount to support the journalist’s work and in particular his book “Putin’s Power: Why Europe Needs Russia”.
Seipel is very well known in Germany, he has written books and made journalistic documentaries that were broadcast on public television ARD: He has worked with the weekly magazines Stern and Der Spiegel in the past, and he conducted the first television interview with Edward Snowden (former intelligence analyst who for years was at the center of a major espionage story in the United States) and was portrayed by his editor as “the only Western journalist who had direct and personal access to Putin.” Seipel himself said he had met “more than a hundred times” with the Russian president, about whom he made a documentary “I, Putin” in 2012 and two books: the first in 2015 was a biography.
The case is one of the first to involve an influential Western journalist and provides evidence of large payments that appear to be an attempt by the Putin regime to secure favorable journalistic exposure.
The investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), already known for the revelations resulting from the so-called “Panama Papers”, and the German investigative journalism organization Paper Trail Media is based on 3.6 million documents from seven different financial organizations, six including one in Cyprus and one in Latvia. Using these documents, the journalists involved in the investigation were able to reconstruct how the Russian elites hid and made capital available in Europe despite the sanctions.
One of Seipel’s trips to Russia in 2013 (EPA/ALEXEI NIKOLSKY/RIA NOVOSTI/KREMLIN POOL)
As part of this major investigation, the financing of the oligarch Alexei Mordashov in Seipel came to light: the documents indicate that it was not limited to 600,000 euros for the last book, but had already begun on the occasion of the first. Mordashov is an oligarch with shares in steel mills and banks and an estimated personal fortune of $20 billion. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he was among the oligarchs hit with economic sanctions by the European Union because he was “particularly close” to the Russian president.
Seipel had previously reported on the Kosovo war and the nuclear energy industry and first met Putin over a decade ago for a documentary on the energy sector. The idea of a documentary about Putin himself was born after an agreement was reached with the presidential staff on an interview and filming session lasting several months: The documentary had great success and notoriety because it contained a more personal look at the past and about the life of the Presidents. Seipel had followed Putin while hunting, at judo matches and in the swimming pool and also had him talk about his childhood in St. Petersburg.
The book, which was published three years later, came under more criticism because it seemed to represent many of Putin’s theses a little too uncritically. The German context, especially in these years, was mostly quite favorable for the Russian president. The “German” past of Putin himself, who had worked for the KGB in Dresden and speaks German fluently, and above all the major economic ties between the two countries weighed heavily. German heads of state and government such as Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel have pursued a policy of integrating Russia into the European sphere of influence, at least on an economic level. Russia has also invested heavily in the German news market, and government media outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik had achieved some prominence in Germany before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Even after the outbreak of war, Seipel held positions that were viewed by many observers as pro-Russian. Contacted by The Washington Post, Seipel confirmed that he had received funding from Mordashov. He described this as a contribution to the many costs incurred in researching the book and said it had been made clear that this would not affect his “independence of judgment”. . The documents show that the money was routed through the financial company De Vere Worldwide Ltd, based in the British Virgin Islands.
However, Seipel did not want to provide any information about the amount of financing, which he had not disclosed to the publisher Hoffmann and Campe. She said she knew nothing about these connections and had no plans to publish new books by Seipel (she is writing one about the war in Ukraine).
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