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Vladimir Pavlovich Peftiev ( be, Уладзiмiр Паўлавiч Пефцiеў; russian: link=no, Владимир Павлович Пефтиев, born 1 July 1957) is a Belarusian businessman, philanthropist and author.


Biography

Vladimir Pavlovich Peftiev was born on 1 July 1957 in the city of
Berdyansk Berdiansk or Berdyansk ( uk, Бердя́нськ, translit=Berdiansk, ; russian: Бердя́нск, translit=Berdyansk ) is a port city in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast (province) in south-eastern Ukraine. It is on the northern coast of the Sea of ...
, Ukraine.


Business

Peftiev was co-owner of BelTechExport, a Belarusian arms and military equipment exporter. As of 2012, Peftiev sold his holdings in BelTechExport and "completely ceased his participation in this group of companies". He owned BT Telecommunications, investment and construction agent. Peftiev also co-owned Sport-Pari, an interactive lotteries operator. Another co-owner of Sport-Pari through one of his companies is
Max Mirnyi Maksim "Max" Mikalaevich Mirnyi ( be, Максім Мікалаевіч Мірны, ; russian: Максим Николаевич Мирный, ; born 6 July 1977) is a Belarusian former professional tennis player. Mirnyi became a doubles speci ...
, Belarusian tennis player and olympic champion. Peftiev was a minority shareholder of GSM operator "velcom". "velcom" was subsequently sold to
A1 Telekom Austria Group A1 Telekom Austria Group is a provider of a range of fixed-line, broadband Internet, multimedia services, data, and IT systems, wholesale as well as mobile payment services. It is a subsidiary of Mexican telecommunications conglomerate América M ...
and rebranded as A1.


Controversies, criticism


EU sanctions

In 2011, after controversial 2010 presidential election in Belarus, the
Council of the European Union The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...
listed Peftiev and his companies "BelTechExport", "Sport-Pari" and "BT Telecommunications" as sanctioned entities. In the Council's decision, Peftiev has been described as a "person associated with President Lukashenko and his family, chief economic advisor of President Lukashenko and key financial sponsor of the Lukashenko regime". Peftiev brought action against the Council in the General Court of the European Union. The team that defended Vladimir Peftiev in court included specialists in the field of human rights, including professor of Yale University and former President of Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Michael Reisman, and former Director of International Law department of University of Bonn professor Rudolf Dolzer. According to
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
, The European Court of Justice annulled sanctions against Mr Peftiev in 2014, after finding that the EU council had adduced no specific evidence to support its allegation that he was a key financial supporter of President Lukashenko, and as a result of that ruling the sanctions are deemed never to have existed. The General Court of European Union decided in Peftiev’s and his companies’ favour on 9 December 2014, annulling the sanctions and ruling that the Council of the European Union and European Commission failed to prove their assertions of Peftiev's links to Lukashenko. The General Court’s judgment of 9 December 2014 concerning Peftiev's company reads the following, deeming the sanctions to have never existed (clause 149):
...the Court held that anctions involving Belarusshould be annulled in so far as they concern Mr Peftiev. By virtue of that annulling judgment, the annulled acts, in so far as they concern Mr Peftiev, are deleted retroactively from the legal order and deemed never to have existed … and consequently Mr Peftiev is deemed never to have been listed.
Situation with sanctions against Peftiev was referenced by professor Rudolf Dolzer in his interview on May 8, 2018 to Latvian newspaper “Dienas bizness”, in which he pointed out to the false information in the Internet that was used against Vladimir Peftiev, and namely baseless accusations regarding illegal incomes of Mr. Peftiev and illicit arms trade. This decision of European General Court was left unattended by mass media. Moreover, various sources continued to publish disproved information that originated before or during sanctions, instead of deleting it from their servers according to the court’s decision. This was described by Professor Rudolf Dolzer in his article «Weeding Out Fake Journalism» for 10th issue of Forbes Georgia:
Notwithstanding this clear decision, published in 2014, many concerned Internet sources, including respected data information providers, have decided, for whatever reason, to ignore the highest European Court, and still today, in 2018, have on their servers the outdated, discredited information. Another aspect of fake news has come out. A portion of the media ignored the judgment of the European Court of Justice in favor of Mr. Peftiev, even though the original fake news underlying the sanctions had been published in virtually all media. While fake news was considered newsworthy, its refutation by the court went unnoticed by the same media.


Offshores

Peftiev was mentioned in the Bahamas offshore leaks in 2016: allegedly, he held three companies in Bahamas through an intermediary. In 2020, an investigation by The Times and Transparency Networks found that Peftiev’s family owned 12 flats in London, with a total worth around £18 million. This portfolio was purchased through a number of offshore companies. Peftiev's family were not under sanctions and the purchases did not breach sanctions.


Science and technology

Peftiev has contributed to research and development of a number of new technologies in various fields, with multiple patents issued to his name. In his work, Peftiev has cooperated with Belarusian scientists such as Vladimir Alexandrovich Katko and Sergey Vladimirovich Pletnev.


Philanthropy


Sport

Peftiev actively sponsored various sports projects in Belarus. He managed and supported creation of tennis club responsible for training young Belarusian players, among which were
Olga Govortsova Olga Alekseyevna Govortsova ( be, Вольга Аляксееўна Гаварцова (Volha Alyakseyeuna Havartsova); ; born 23 August 1988) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. On 23 June 2008, she achieved a career-high singles ranki ...
and
Ekaterina Dzehalevich Ekaterina Dzehalevich ( be, Кацярына Міхайлаўна Дзегалевіч; russian: Екатерина Михайловна Деголевич; born 3 May 1986) is a former professional Belarusian tennis player. Her career-high singl ...
. Peftiev was the main sponsor of
Victoria Azarenka Victória Fyódarauna Azárenka ( be, Вікторыя Фёдараўна Азаранка; Russian: Виктория Фёдоровна Азаренко; born 31 July 1989) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. Azarenka is a former wo ...
, Olympic tennis champion and former world No. 1, at the beginning of her career. From 2009 to 2012, Peftiev headed the Belarus Tennis Federation.
Max Mirnyi Maksim "Max" Mikalaevich Mirnyi ( be, Максім Мікалаевіч Мірны, ; russian: Максим Николаевич Мирный, ; born 6 July 1977) is a Belarusian former professional tennis player. Mirnyi became a doubles speci ...
, former No. 1 player in the ATP Doubles Rankings, expressed his gratitude to Peftiev's work as a CEO of Belarus Tennis Federation.


Religious heritage

Peftiev's contributions to the preservation of Orthodox Christian heritage have been recognised with awards from the
Belarusian Orthodox Church The Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC; be, Беларуская праваслаўная царква, russian: Белорусская православная церковь) is the official name of the Belarusian Exarchate ( be, Беларуск ...
. He was a leading sponsor of the Nikolsky Orthodox Church in Tonezh (completed 2015), built to commemorate the site of a Nazi atrocity.


History and the arts

Peftiev has sponsored and in some cases co-authored a number of art and historical publications, mainly in the historical series "В поисках утраченного" ("In Search of the Lost") by Belorussian historian Vladimir Lihodedov, volumes of which include: * "Tadeusz Kosciuszko In Old Postcards And Drawings" * "Belarus through the camera lens of the German soldier", on the period during WWI when part of modern Belarus was occupied by German troops * "Adam Mickiewicz", on the poet and patriot of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania * "Aleksander Nevsky", on the Orthodox churches built in European countries in honor of the Russian saint-prince * "State Bank of the Russian Empire in postcards, late 19th-early 20th centuries" * "Monuments dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812" Peftiev co-authored the following: * "1812: Chronicles of the Patriotic War in Old Postcards and Drawings", a commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the Russian Campaign of Napoleon I and the Russian Patriotic War of 1812 * "Equal-to-the-Apostles Duke Vladimir", a work on
Vladimir the Great Vladimir I Sviatoslavich or Volodymyr I Sviatoslavych ( orv, Володимѣръ Свѧтославичь, ''Volodiměrъ Svętoslavičь'';, ''Uladzimir'', russian: Владимир, ''Vladimir'', uk, Володимир, ''Volodymyr''. Se ...
and his impact on Slavic culture In 2017, a book of maxims by Vladimir Peftiev titled "Maxims of a Man of Schemes" was published with a foreword by the British philosopher and author
A. C. Grayling Anthony Clifford Grayling (; born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author. He was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and spent most of his childhood there and in Nyasaland (now Malawi). In 2011 he founded and became the first Mast ...
. The foreword says:
These striking, amusing and sometimes pungent aphorisms are so full of a certain kind of pragmatic wisdom that I am moved to quote Professor Higgins on Mr Alfred Doolittle: that the latter was "the most original moralist" that the former had encountered for many years. The hard truths of practical life are apt to wring from people of experience a view of how to navigate the maze of routes that lies between desire and success; it is not, invariably, a view for the faint-hearted or those persuaded more by Aristotle than Gordon Gekko; but it will certainly strike a chord with many who have ventured that maze, and will certainly provide a preparation – and for some a warning – to those planning or wishing to do so. No-one can fail to profit, therefore – in at least one relevant sense of that term – from these maxims, offered by one who has been all the way through that maze and back.
Another book authored by Peftiev was published in 2020 and is titled "Quotations From Stories Yet To Be Written", with a foreword by a British author Adam Roberts. In 2012, an exhibition titled "2012. War and Peace" featuring Peftiev's private historic and art collection was opened in Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Peftiev, Vladimir Belarusian businesspeople People from Berdiansk 1957 births Living people