The Cyprus Confidential investigation reveals that Hubert Seipel, a German journalist who wrote a best-selling book and made an award-winning documentary about Vladimir Putin, was secretly paid by someone close to the Kremlin.
Hubert Seipel, 73, author and leading German television journalist, is considered one of Europe’s best experts on the Russian regime. He likes to use his privileged access to Vladimir Putin, whose biography he wrote. The journalist doesn’t shy away from sending pictures of him and the Russian president deer hunting in Siberia or strolling through the streets of Moscow in the back seat of a limousine. He says he has met Vladimir Putin a hundred times. Hubert Seipel’s portraits of the Kremlin leader earned him widespread praise, particularly because he was one of the few to portray Russia as anything other than a threatening country. Hubert Seipel was also the first European journalist to receive an interview with whistleblower Edward Snowden, who fled to Russia. The problem, however, is that our Cyprus Confidential investigation shows that he was secretly paid by Russia, most likely for at least ten years.
The documents proving the existence of this secret agreement were revealed thanks to “Cyprus Confidential”, an international investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), whose partner is the investigative unit of Radio France, and the German investigative agency Media Paper Trail Media. The investigation, based on a leak of 3.6 million files from six Cypriot financial services firms, shows how various firms helped members of the Russian elite hide billions of dollars in assets to avoid impending sanctions. It also highlights Cyprus’ role as a financial center used by those close to Vladimir Putin.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during an interview with German journalist Hubert Seipel in Vladivostok (Russia), November 13, 2014 (MIKHAIL KLEMENTYEV / RIA NOVOSTI / KREMLIN POOL / MAXPPP)
But the investigation also shows that Hubert Seipel received more than 600,000 euros in 2018 and 2019 from a shell company that is connected to Alexei Mordashov, a famous Russian oligarch who has been in Europe and the United States since the war precisely because of his Links to the Kremlin were sanctioned. The agreement signed by Hubert Seipel did not provide for any direct compensation. Rather, the money should be a kind of “sponsorship agreement”, or “deed of sponsorship”. According to the document we saw, this amount was to be used to support a book project about Russia and make it available to a wide audience.
“A damn stupid thing”
A handwritten note on a document from 2018 suggests that the contract signed with Hubert Seipel provided for the writing of a “book on the political environment in the Russian Federation.” The book “sponsored” in this way was actually published in 2021 under the title Putin’s Power. Why Europe needs Russia (“The power of Putin. Why Europe needs Russia”, book not published in France). It was published by the renowned Hamburg publishing house Hoffmann and Campe. The reader does not find out who is behind this sponsorship agreement.
According to the documents we have access to, this was not the journalist’s first attempt. Another note refers to an agreement reached in 2013 to write a “Putin biography.” However, two years later, the German journalist published a work entitled Putin, a Vision of Power.
Interviewed by ICIJ partner journalists, Hubert Seipel initially pointed out that the financial flows uncovered in our investigation were “complete nonsense”. He later admitted that he had received money and admitted that the oligarch Alexei Mordashov was hiding behind the “sponsorship” contract. But he denies any corruption and denies being “some kind of Putin agent.” According to Hubert Seipel, Alexey Mordashov enabled him to conduct extensive research for his two books. “He is an entrepreneur who supports projects with private funds,” he says. When contacted, Alexey Mordashov and Vladimir Putin did not respond to questions sent to them by ICIJ partners.
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