President and Chairman of the Board of VTB since June 10, 2002 In 1973, Kostin began studies at Moscow State University, graduating in 1979 with a degree in political economy.

[2] In 1985, he became an employee of the USSR Embassy in Great Britain working on economic issues with the KGB spy Alexander Lebedev, where he remained until 1990.

[7] In May 2017, Kostin suggested the Washington elite was purposefully disrupting the presidency of Donald Trump by spreading false accusations about his ties to Russia.

[12] On April 4, 2019, the Vedomosti newspaper drew attention to the massive blocking of publications by Roskomnadzor on the Internet, most of which mentioned gifts from VTB bank president Andrei Kostin to Nailya Asker-zade [az; ka; lez; ru], a television journalist and his longtime girlfriend.

Kostin, according to Navalny in his video clip, uses money belonging to the bank, 60.9% of which is state-owned, to buy luxurious real estate for his beloved.

[25][26][27][28][29] On February 22, 2024, the United States Department of Justice charged Kostin and two associates, Vadim Wolfson and Gannon Bond, with money laundering and violating the American sanctions against him.