Swiss firm Gunvor withdraws bid to purchase overseas assets of Russia’s sanctioned oil major Lukoil after U.S. labels it a “Kremlin puppet”

Swiss company Gunvor announced it would not purchase the international assets of Lukoil, a Russian oil giant currently under U.S. sanctions. Gunvor had been set to acquire LUKOIL International GmbH, through which the Russian oil giant manages its overseas holdings. Shortly before Gunvor pulled out of the deal, the U.S. Treasury described the Swiss company as “the Kremlin's puppet.”

Gunvor Group was founded in 2000 by Russian oligarch Gennady Timchenko, a close associate of Vladimir Putin, and his business partner Torbjörn Törnqvist, a Swedish national. In 2014, Timchenko sold his stake to Törnqvist just before U.S. sanctions were imposed. Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury claimed that Putin, through Timchenko, “may have investments in Gunvor and access to its funds.” Following these claims, the company announced it had stopped trading Russian oil. Timchenko is under sanctions from the U.S., the EU, and the UK, and his business entities have figured prominently in investigations into oil supplies and the financing of Russian projects abroad.

In the current case, Gunvor’s proposed purchase of Lukoil’s international assets could not go through without approval from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). In a critical blow to those plans, on the evening of Nov. 6, the U.S. Treasury issued a statement on social media that read:

“President Trump has been clear that the war must end immediately. As long as Putin continues the senseless killings, the Kremlin’s puppet, Gunvor, will never get a license to operate and profit.”

About an hour later, Gunvor posted a statement of its own — denying any ties to Russia and announcing that it “withdraws its proposal for Lukoil’s international assets.”

Word of Gunvor's plans to purchase Lukoil’s foreign assets began to spread in late October. The Russian company had initially agreed to the deal and committed not to negotiate with other potential buyers. Gunvor intended to acquire LUKOIL International GmbH, an Austria-registered holding through which the corporation manages dozens of subsidiaries across Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The sanctions against Lukoil are set to come into effect on November 21, 2025, meaning the Russian oil giant still has two weeks to “wind down…retail service stations located outside of the Russian Federation.”