Andrey Kostin

• Order of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Seraphim, 2nd class;
• Orders For Merit to the Fatherland (2nd, 3rd and 4th classes);
• Order of Honour;
• Order of Merit (France);
• Received a Presidential Letter of Appreciation for his great contribution to the development of the national economy, the strengthening of Russia's position in the global oil and gas industry and his successful efforts to improve the investment climate in the Russian Federation (2017);
• Certificate of Appreciation from the Government of the Russian Federation for Professional and Public Achievements (2016);
• Presidential Certificate of Honour for contributions to the socio-economic development of the Russian Federation, professional achievements, civic engagement, and many years of dedicated service (2015);
• Letter of Gratitude of the Russian Government for significant personal contributions to the development of the Russian banking system and many years of hard work (2006);
• Russian Government Certificate of Honour for significant personal contributions to the development of the Russian banking system and many years of hard work (2001);
• Russian Government Certificate of Honour for significant personal contributions to the development of foreign banking activity in Russia (1998).

Kostin, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong at the APEC Australia 2007

Kostin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at an opening ceremony of the Russian Commercial Bank in Cyprus in 2010

He is one of the most active representatives of the Russian banking sector and is a frequent guest on CNBC,[3] Fox News,[4] CNN,[5] BBC and Bloomberg TV-channel. He has three times participated in the Charlie Rose show on Bloomberg television,[6] as well as the Hard Talk programme on BBC.[7] He has been attending the World Economic Forum (Davos, Switzerland) since 1996.[8]

On January 19, 2017, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kostin, called for the sanctions on the Russian financial sector, especially the "four leading Russian banks" to be lifted.[9]

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.[10]

On January 22-4, 2018, during interviews at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kostin again stated that additional sanctions against individuals or entities would be an "economic war".[11][12]

In April 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on him and 23 other Russian nationals.[13][14]

He is on the supervisory board of Post Bank.[15]

In 2019, the team of Russian lawyer, political activist and founder of the non-governmental organization Fund for Combating Corruption (Russian: Фонд борьбы с коррупцией, FBK for short) Alexei Nawalny uncovered a corruption scandal resulting from Kostin's long-standing affair with TV presenter and journalist Nailya Asker-zade (b. December 13, 1987, Baku, Azerbaijan). Thus, since 2018, the lover of the president of the state bank VTB used, at the expense of the Russian state, the aircraft "Bombardier Global 6000, T7-KLT", which used to belong to a subsidiary of VTB, as well as a 62-meter yacht. Today, the jet belongs to an offshore company that appears to have nothing to do with VTB. And although the owner of the yacht could not be determined, an offshore company is involved here as well, as the creation of the ownership documents was handled anonymously through a shell company. The FBK team claims to have established a link between Asker-zade and the use of the jet by connecting various cities where the journalist had conducted interviews with high-profile figures (mostly politicians), her Instagram photos, and all of the plane's movements. Navalny and his team noted which flights the presenter took on the luxury jet. Thus, in 2019 alone, she flew to Sochi (February 12), London (March 1), Tanzania (June 20), Nice (July 13), Rome (August 22), Vladivostok (September 3), Brussels (September 19), St. Petersburg (June 8, 24, Sept. 24), Irkutsk (Sept. 24), Paris (April 24, Oct. 4), Yekaterinburg (Oct. 7), Tallinn (Nov. 14) and Riga (Nov. 15). The aircraft cost about $60 million (or 3.9 billion rubles), and FBK does not rule out the possibility that the jet may have only been rented. But even then, the rental cost would be the immense sum of 559,000 rubles per hour of flight. Since Asker-zade had made 16 flights with the aircraft between August 4 and September 3, 2019, with a total duration of 51.5 hours, the rental costs would amount to 28.9 million rubles per month. He also said that the 62-meter yacht named "Sea & Us" was worth $62 million (or about 4 billion rubles). To prove that Kostin's lover was indeed on the yacht, Navalny's team had compared photos of the yacht with photos from Asker-zade's Instagram account showing various details of the yacht. All the sums of money mentioned are significantly above the budget of the Russian TV presenter.

Moreover, FBK's investigation has revealed that according to the Unified State Register of Real Estate, Nailya Asker-zade has been the owner of 53 ares of land and a house with an area of 923 m² in the cottage village of Shukovka-3 in Rublyovka near Moscow since 2015. This dacha cost at least 250 million rubles. Mention is also made of two apartments in the residential complex "Novaya Ostoshenka" in Moscow, which Asker-zade acquired in 2011 and 2014. She received the first apartment (229 m² of living space) as a gift from Kirill Zimarin, the head of a subsidiary of VTB in Cyprus, while the second apartment (155 m² of living space) she took directly from VTB, the previous owner. The TV presenter confirmed in an interview with the fashion magazine "Tatler" that she was the owner of an apartment in Moscow and stressed that it was large. Kostin, according to Navalny in his video clip, uses colossal sums of money from his bank, 60.9% of which is state-owned, to buy luxurious real estate for his beloved. In any case, it is clear from what has been said that there are numerous indications, if not proofs, of a corruption scandal.[16]

Kostin's father Leonid Kostin (1922-2016) was an economist with expertise in labor economics. He was serving at several systems in the Soviet Union, including prolonged functioning in the system of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Government of USSR, at to a level of deputy (vice-) department head (vice-minister) in these both "inseparable" organizations. He traveled internationally extensively promoting ideas and decisions of the party. Kostin's wife is Natalya and they had one son Andrey.[17][18]

In 2018, a number of media portals reported about a “special personal relationship,” which, at least since 2014, have connected Kostin with the journalist Nailya Asker-Zade. In November of 2018, the Arbitration Court of the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region deemed this information to be untrue and defamatory to business reputation.[19] The same decision prohibited the dissemination of this information in the territory of the Russian Federation. In 2019, newspapers such as Vedomosti and Kommersant, Forbes magazine and Radio Liberty reported that about 1,000 digital publications about Kostin were blocked by Roskomnadzor [20][21][22][23] The relationship was confirmed with a plaque dedicated to Kostin from Nailya Asker-Zade found on a bench in Central Park, New York City in a video by Alexei Navalny published in December 2019, who also accused Kostin of lavishing Asker-Zade with gifts, including a $4 Million Mansion, a 200-Foot Yacht and a private jet.[24]

• Timeline of investigations into Trump and Russia (July–December 2017)

• www.vtb.com: CV