Denis Sinyakov / Reuters
Vladimir Putin’s former chief of staff has a secret investment in an American energy company, The Guardian reports. Alexander Voloshin—who worked for Putin between 2000 and 2003—has an undisclosed stake in American Ethane, a firm based in Houston that recently signed a multibillion dollar export deal with China and has been praised by Donald Trump as creating jobs for American workers. Voloshin is reportedly part of a consortium of Russian investors in the massive energy firm. In November 2017, Trump presided over a $26bn deal to supply liquid ethane to China, which was struck between privately owned American Ethane and a large Chinese conglomerate. The president was said by the White House to be promoting “American prosperity and trade” in deals that would generate “thousands of American jobs,” but The Guardian states that “the chief beneficiaries of the Trump-endorsed deal live and work in Moscow.”