Alexander Zhukov

Alexander Borisovich Zhukov (Александр Борисович Жуков; born 13 June 1954) is a Russian-born British businessman.

He is the founder and major owner of the international investment group Interfinance, investing in port and transport infrastructure, food industry and real estate, as well as engaged in portfolio investments.

The assets of Interfinance group currently include transshipment port terminals (sulphur, mineral fertilizers and other bulk cargo, vehicles) in Russia and Ukraine, Iceberry group of companies - the Russian ice-cream producer and distributor, development projects in Russia and Ukraine, road construction business and insurance business in Ukraine.

Zhukov was born in 1954 in Moscow.

His father, Shayaborg (Boris) Rabkin, was a playwright and writer, and his mother, Inessa Rabkina, was an editor at the Moscow film studio.Alexander Zhukov is related to Georgy Zhukhov, the marshal who led the Red Army in the Second World War.

Zhukov gives a lot of money to the Russian Orthodox Church and he restores churches.

After graduating from school, he worked as an assistant to a film director at the Moscow film studio "Tsentrnauchfilm".

In the late 1980s, he started his business activity.

In the late 1980s, Zhukov founded the cooperative "Byte" and started the business of selling personal computers.

In 1981, he graduated from the Institute of Asian and African Studies under the Moscow State University.

After graduation, he worked as editor at "Sovinterfest" (a division of the Goskino organizing exhibitions and festivals).

In the early 1990s, jointly with his acquaintances Leonid Lebedev and Mark Garber, he founded a cooperative named "Sintez".

In the late 1990s, the Sintez business partners decided to divide the business.

The transshipment business and the bank in Ukraine passed to Zhukov, while the Russian assets - to Lebedev.

In 1991-1992, Sintez started to trade oil and oil products.

In 1992, Sintez founded a company named "Negusneft" that acquired a license to explore and develop a small Varyngskoe field in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District.

Also, Sintez acquired 10% share in "Nizhnevartovskneftegaz" (the core of the future company TNK), 15% in "Rosneft-Sakhalinmorneftegaz" and 15% in the Yaroslavl Oil Processing Plant.

Zhukov has resided in London since 1993.

In 1993, the group began to cooperate with the Odesa Oil Processing Plant.

At the same time the group were making investments to the port development.

The investments amounted to US$100 million.

By the end of the nineties the capacity of the oil intake, storage and transshipment facility reached 25 million tons per year.

Sintez transshipped oil through the Odesa port terminal and arranged for oil trading in the international market through its traders located in the UK, Switzerland and Finland.

In 1995, the group acquired a Ukrainian bank which later became Marine Transport Bank.

Initially its operations were limited to the processing of the group’s transactions but later it expanded its operations and started to service public agencies and enterprises in the Odesa Region.

In 1997, the group’s turnover reached US$1.5 billion.

A report titled Ukrainian Organized Crime compiled by Italian police in October 1998, obtained by reporters from Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, refers to Zhukov as a member of organized crime group “Odesa Oil Mafia.” In 2004, Zhukov was absolved from the offences of "moral complicity" in arms trading, because (as was stated in court decision) the offences, for which he was charged, did not occur.

According to Institutional Investor, Alexander Zhukov was a client of a Jersey-based offshore trust company La Hougue which engaged in tax minimisation through legal loopholes and other avoidance measures.

Zhukov was previously married to Russian-Jewish molecular biologist Yelena Zhukova.

He has one daughter, Darya "Dasha" Zhukova, and two sons: Mikhail Zhukov and Boris Zhukov.

In 1998, Zhukov started to cooperate with Lukoil.

A joint venture "Luk-Sintez Oil" was established to supply the Lukoil-produced oil.

In 1999, the company acquired the Odesa Oil Processing Plant.

In 2000, Zhukov sold his share in the company to Lukoil.

In the beginning of 2000, Zhukov consolidated his transshipment business in Ukraine under the Transit brand.

In 2001, he became a British citizen.

In 2001, Zhukov was arrested in Italy and spent several months under arrest on suspicion of being engaged in arms smuggling from Ukraine to the states of former Yugoslavia.

Subject to legal documents, Zhukov was charged of "moral complicity".

Through his daughter Dasha, who was married to oil oligarch Roman Abramovich, he has a grandson, Aaron Abramovich (born 2009), and a granddaughter, Leah Abramovich (born 2013).

In March 2021 his third grandson, Philip Stavros Niarchos, was born after his daughter's wedding to Stavros Niarchos II, the grandson of a Greek shipping tycoon.