One Powerful Family, Different Sides of the War

The war has divided the family of Bekkhan Agayev, a United Russia State Duma deputy close to Ramzan Kadyrov (the head of Chechen Republic — Ed.). The fight club Agayev founded supports the Russian ArBat battalion fighting against Ukraine, meanwhile the deputy’s younger brother, Batyr Agayev, has become a Belgian citizen. The investment funds associated with him have invested approximately €100 million in European real estate.

IStories discovered this thanks to our participation in the OpenLux project, which allows the journalists access data on the ownership of Luxembourg-registered companies and funds. Le Monde and Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) are partners in the project.

Kadyrov’s “dear brother”

Ramzan Kadyrov referred to Bekkhan and Batyr’s father, Vakha Agayev, the patriarch of the family, as “dear brother.” There is a video honoring Agayev on Kadyrov’s VKontakte page: on Agayev’s 60th birthday in 2013, Kadyrov awarded him the title of “Honorary Citizen of the Chechen Republic.” They are shown discussing something at a large table set with appetizers against a backdrop of golden furniture. In 2013, a street in the city of Urus-Martan was named in honor of the “dear brother” even though he was still alive back then.

Vakha Agayev built the family business empire, the Yug-Nefteprodukt, a Chechen oil trading company. With his children, Bekkhan and Batyr, Vakha also owned stakes in the largest oil refineries of southern Russia — the Tuapse and Krasnodar ones.

There is no doubt that the business has been a family enterprise: the Agayevs took turns owning Yug-Nefteprodukt. Vakha Agayev founded the company in 1998. He and his youngest son, Batyr, would successively control it through one German company (Interinol) and two offshore entities, Rutley Company SA and Okling Group SA, based in the British Virgin Islands, as revealed in the offshore leak documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Starting in 2009, the family members have owned Yug-Nefteprodukt directly. Initially, it was owned by the younger son, Batyr Agayev (as both the father and the elder son were members of the State Duma at the time, which would not allow them to run the business — Ed.). From 2018 to 2021, the elder son Bekkhan was in charge. Vakha died of COVID-19 in 2020, and the following year Bekkhan returned to the Russian parliament, where he still holds a seat. Now it was time for the next generation of the Agayev family to take the reins, and Yug-Nefteprodukt was transferred to Bekkhan’s son, Ruslan.

The Agayevs business in Europe has also been a family affair. Interinol, a German oil and petroleum trader, is still owned by Batyr Agayev. Vakha Agayev was listed as managing director, and Bekkhan served as an authorized representative until 2015 (while still being a Russian Duma deputy).

In 2024, Interinol changed its name to Agom and switched to asset management, but this is still the company the Agayevs utilized to hold stakes in the Tuapse and Krasnodar oil refineries (as well as the offshore companies).

The Agayev family have invested their oil money in real estate — not only in Russia but, as it turned out, in Europe as well.

Assets and connections

The Tuapse Oil Refinery, in which the Agayevs owned a stake, used to be one of the main oil refineries in southern Russia (prior to its stoppage due to a Ukrainian drone attack in 2026 — Ed.). And the Agayevs’ Yug-Nefteprodukt was one of the largest suppliers of crude oil to this refinery. In 2004, the company supplied more than 30% of all the crude oil to be processed at the refinery (meanwhile Rosneft, the state-owned company that controlled the refinery at the time, supplied 40%). Until 2004, the Agayevs’ offshore companies (the aforementioned Rutley Company and Okling Group) owned 20.32% of the Tuapse Oil Refinery. Later these shares were purchased by Rosneft.

Starting in the 2000s, the Agayevs, through the same offshore firms and the German Interinol, have owned a 41.2% share of another key southern Russia oil refinement facility, the Krasnodar Oil Refinery — Krasnodarekoneft (KNPZ-KEN). Bekkhan Agayev was on board until 2021. According to the documents from the ICIJ offshore leak, Mikhail Gutseriev’s (a Russian billionaire and Russneft founder — Ed.) offshores, Basca United SA and Ratger Company SA, co-owned the refinery. In 2021, KNPZ-KEN merged with Afipsky Refinery belonging to Gutseriev.

The billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev is also close to the Kadyrov family. In 2025, Ramzan Kadyrov awarded the billionaire the title of Honorary Citizen of Chechnya. On his Telegram channel, he stated that Gutseriev and Chechnya’s first president Akhmad Kadyrov (Ramzan’s father), shared “warm, personal, and trusting relations.”

Bekkhan Agayev used to be Gutseriev's advisor at Russneft. According to the ICIJ offshore leak, his brother, Batyr Agayev, has owned Eso Trading, a petroleum products trading company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The company was supplied with petroleum products by the Agayevs’ Yug-Nefteprodukt and was part of complex export schemes involving Gutseriev’s Russneft in the early 2000s. These schemes drew the attention of Russian tax authorities at the time, leading to legal proceedings in arbitration courts. Eso Trading would export petroleum products processed from Russneft crude oil at the Afipsky Refinery to France, Spain, and Portugal. The crude oil and petroleum products passed through a chain of companies eligible for VAT refunds. The tax authorities objected to this, suspecting that the scheme was making no economic sense, which made it seem suspicious.

In 2006, Yug-Nefteprodukt affiliates purchased Capital Tower, a 16-story business center on Brestskaya Street in Moscow. At the time, the deal was estimated to be worth $70–75 million. The business center was registered under a Cypriot company, Boundhill Trading, which belonged to Vakha and Batyr Agayev through three offshore companies (Prime Business Inc, Rutley Company SA, and Northern Starinvest SA), as revealed in the ICIJ offshore leak.

In 2019, Yug-Nefteprodukt acquired a 25% stake in Red7, a premium-class residential complex project on Sakharov Avenue in the very centre of Moscow, just 2.5 km from the Kremlin. “The Garden Ring isn’t simply welcoming a new building in the spirit of modern London or Hong Kong. A prototype of the Moscow of tomorrow is being created here,” the project’s website ambitiously declares. The complex was completed in 2024.

As of 2025, its developer, the Osnova Group — one of the top 10 largest developers in the capital — was 10% owned by AG-Invest, which is Yug-Nefteprodukt’s new company name.

Batyr Agayev’s Luxembourg-based Everest

The Luxembourg registry records show that Batyr Agayev, the younger brother of the deputy Bekkhan, has become a Belgian citizen and splits his time between Berlin and Monaco. Batyr Agayev owns a 56.16% stake in a Luxembourg-based real estate investment fund Everest One, established in 2019. According to the fund’s website, it focuses on real estate investments (primary commercial and office real estate in Germany, but also on hotels, healthcare facilities and housing). Its assets amounted to €65 million in 2022.

The fund is managed by Mimco Group, founded by Swiss national Bernd von Manteuffel and Luxembourg national Christophe Nadal. The former has been dealing with European real estate for over 35 years, while the latter, according to the website, boasts 20 years of experience. The group currently manages assets of over €2 billion worth.

Batyr Agayev also holds a 43.5% stake in the Luxembourg-based Mimco Real Estate Holding. According to the 2022 data, the company invested about €35 million in German Mimco Real Estate Holding Se & Co Kg, which is intended for real estate investments, as indicated in the company’s financial report.

A fight club and the Wild Donbass Division

“Bekkhan Agayev is one of the founders of the URF [United Russian Fighters] team. <...> He is a true patriot of Russia who makes a significant contribution to our country’s development every day. <...> We are sincerely proud that he supports our team, motivates our athletes, and helps the community,” the URF mixed martial arts club posted on their Instagram page.

According to a company register, Bekkhan Agayev’s son Dany owns 40% of the United Russian Fighters club. Half of the URF is owned by its vice-president, Roland (Rocky) Kavali. Among those representing the club is, for example, the well-known Russian fighter Alexander Emelianenko.

URF and its associates assist Russian military forces in the war against Ukraine. “We’ve gathered a large shipment of humanitarian aid, which will be sent today to the ArBat, (“Armenian Batallion” — Ed.) within the Pyatnashka, [a military unit also known as] the Wild Donbass Division, from our team and our founders,” the club reported on its Instagram page in 2024. 

Roland Kavali, the Agayevs’ partner at United Russian Fighters and the club’s vice-president, as well as Vagab Vagabov, one of the fighters, were longtime friends of the late ArBat founder Armen Sargsyan, the battalion commander has mentioned in an interview. He thanked them for their support. Kavali contributes “a great deal to the battalion,” the commander explained: “He’s built us a gym where Vagab Vagabov trains the guys, gets them ready, and keeps them in shape.”

In January 2024, Vagabov told Match TV that he had signed a military contract to serve in the ArBat battalion. However, he is not fighting on the front lines, but rather 2–3 km away. “I’ve taken on the soldiers’ physical and firearms training,” Vagabov said in a Sport-Express interview.

Neither the Agayevs, nor Kavali, nor the Mimco founders Manteuffel and Nadal have responded to our questions.