Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoys, met President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 5 September. The meeting covered a possible truce in the Ukraine war as well as a proposed sale of overseas assets owned by Lukoil.
Putin asked Kushner and Witkoff to help arrange the sale of the foreign holdings of Lukoil, Russia’s privately owned oil giant. They agreed to pursue it, judging that a completed transaction could build goodwill with the Kremlin and reduce global energy prices.
Lukoil had been seeking a buyer after its valuation fell following its addition to US and European sanctions lists in October 2025. US sanctions had also reduced the price of its foreign holdings.
The company announced plans to sell foreign assets valued at $20 billion after sanctions were imposed. Its projects include operations in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Egypt, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Mexico, the UAE and the Republic of Congo. It also has oil refineries in Bulgaria, Romania and the Netherlands.
Todd Boehly, a billionaire asset manager and co-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is leading the investor group pursuing those assets.
The consortium includes International Holding Company, a major Middle Eastern investment firm chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family of the UAE. It also includes the billionaire Syrian-Qatari Al-Khayyat family and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).
Organisations separately run by Sheikh Tahnoun hold roughly half the stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture founded by the Trump family, the Witkoff family and others. Key figures in the investor group have various business ties to Trump’s children, the Witkoff family and Kushner.
Ben Black, who heads the DFC, is the son of Leon Black, co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo. The DFC is expected to take an equity stake of around 15% in a new company, while Boehly and the DFC would control a majority of its board.
Boehly donated $1 million to MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump political action committee, last December.
The proposed sale follows at least two earlier attempts to dispose of Lukoil’s overseas assets that collapsed or stalled after making significant progress.
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