“Prime Gun: Maverick” — nominated for six Academy Awards, together with greatest image — has a darkish secret. 

The blockbuster, which celebrates the scrappy nature of US fighter pilots flying harmful missions to maintain the world secure, is being focused for being funded partly by a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev, who’s near the Kremlin and sanctioned by Ukraine. 

In an open letter to the Academy, the Ukrainian World Congress, which represents Ukrainian expats around the globe, expressed its “severe issues over Russia’s affect on the Hollywood movie business.”

The letter circulated final week in the course of the closing days of voting for the Oscars. 

Rybolovlev, 56, is not any stranger to controversy.

He maintained his innocence whereas spending a 12 months in a Russian jail within the Nineties for a homicide he was later acquitted of.

In 2008, in the course of the financial recession, Rybolovlev, by way of a belief, paid $95 million for Donald Trump’s Palm Seashore mansion. On the time, Trump was cash-strapped and radioactive to US banks.

In 2011, Rybolovlev additionally paid a then-record $88 million for a 15 Central Park West penthouse owned by Joan Weill.

Joan lived within the penthouse along with her husband, Sanford Weill, former chair of Citigroup, which was lively transferring Russian cash offshore within the Nineties, in response to the US Common Accounting Workplace.

In 2000, a GAO report said that Citigroup allowed greater than $800 million in suspicious Russian funds to stream by US accounts tied to shell corporations registered in Delaware.

The deposits had been believed by investigators to be “cash fleeing taxes or the earnings of legal actions,” in response to the Tax Justice Community, a UK-based advocacy group.

Whereas the primary “Prime Gun” movie mentions Russia because the enemy, “Prime Gun: Maverick” makes no point out of Russia, despite the fact that the US pilots are bombing a snowy nation’s nukes, in response to Diane Francis, an anti-kleptocracy skilled on the Atlantic Council, who reported on Rybolovlev’s “Prime Gun” connection in her Substack publication.

“It’s appalling,” Francis informed The Publish. “Hollywood actors go to Ukraine for photograph ops, however do nothing about Russian affect in their very own yard.” 

Rybolovlev — who reportedly had affect over the movie — was the silent and controlling monetary supply behind New Republic Footage.

In 2020, when the pandemic put Hollywood on shaky floor, New Republic negotiated a $200 million plus cope with Paramount Footage to fund 1 / 4 of the funds of 10 movies,  together with “Prime Gun: Maverick,” “Coming 2 America,” and the brand new “Mission: Unattainable” sequels, in response to reviews first revealed within the LA Occasions in January. 

Rybolovlev reportedly started transferring his a**ets out of the West, together with New Republic, after Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as Western governments started to impose a brand new spherical of sanctions on Russian oligarchs.

In its letter, UWC president Paul Grod mentioned that Rybolovlev is one in every of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs and a detailed pal and enterprise associate of Yury Trutnev, deputy prime minister of Russia.

Rybolovlev, often known as Russia’s potash king, was additionally Belarussian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s largest associate in potash exports, bringing in money stream that helped Lukashenko strengthen his authoritarian regime, Grod wrote.

Rybolovlev’s silent however controlling function in New Republic was first revealed by New Republic’s ex-president and chief content material officer, Bradley Fischer, who filed a breach of content material lawsuit in opposition to New Republic in LA Superior Court docket, first reported in January within the LA Occasions. A part of the go well with was redacted.

In its open letter to the Academy, the Ukrainian World Congress referred to as on the Academy to reject movies with “direct or oblique investments by Russian oligarchs or different enablers of Russia’s genocidal struggle on Ukraine,” to overview the eligibility of “Prime Gun: Maverick” from taking part within the Academy Awards, and to situation a powerful assertion condemning Russia’s struggle in opposition to Ukraine and any makes an attempt “to affect Hollywood and American society.” 

Wrote Grod: “We had been moved by the second of silence exhibiting solidarity with Ukraine eventually 12 months’s Academy Awards…On this context, the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) expresses its severe issues over Russia’s affect on the Hollywood movie business.”

Within the letter, Grod additionally wrote: “Rybolovlev’s funding of ‘Prime Gun: Maverick’ was not publicly disclosed and there’s good cause to imagine that his involvement might have led to censorship on behalf of the Kremlin. Opposite to the unique movie, ‘Prime Gun: Maverick’ makes no direct or oblique reference to Russia. That is hardly a coincidence. Hollywood have to be vigilant and clear of Russian cash getting used to additional pro-Kremlin censorship.”

Rybolovlev can also be an artwork collector and Monaco soccer staff proprietor.

He has been the topic of investigations in Switzerland and Monaco and he has additionally filed lawsuits in opposition to Sotheby’s and Swiss artwork seller Yves Bouvier, alleging fraud.

Earlier this month, a US district courtroom choose dominated “largely in favor” of Sotheby’s, which is looking for to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Rybolovlev in opposition to the public sale home stemming from the oligarch’s battle with Bouvier, who allegedly “defrauded” Rybolovlev of $1 billion in inflating artwork offers, in response to reviews.

The oligarch alleges that Sotheby’s helped Bouvier purchase artwork for a whole bunch of tens of millions lower than the $1 billion he later offered them for to Rybolovlev.

The offers embody “Salvatore Mundi” — partially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Bouvier acquired Salvatore Mundi for $83 million in 2013, then offered it to Rybolovlev for $127 million.

In 2017, Rybolovlev auctioned it at Christie’s for $450 million — the customer was reportedly Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.