Matthias Warnig

Artur Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former East German Stasi officer and a Russia-based businessman who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin. He joined the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, in 1974. During the Cold War he engaged in financial crimes by attempting to infiltrate and spy against banks in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). After the Stasi was disbanded following the unification of Germany, he was left unemployed and moved to Russia, where he took part in business ventures in cooperation with Putin, whom he had already known as a Stasi officer.

He was managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the Russian government and that is responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. He was managing director of Nord Stream 2 AG. Warnig is under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project.

Early life and education Matthias Warnig was born on 26 July 1955 in Altdöbern (Senftenberg), Lower Lusatia (Niederlausitz in German), East Germany. At 18 years old, he was the secretary of the local Free German Youth (FDJ) which was the East German equivalent to Komsomol. Before graduating from school, he joined the ruling Socialist Unity Party, but, instead of serving in the National People's Army (NVA), he underwent six months of training in the Stasi guard regiment and often is referred to as Stasi from Brandenburg.

Career In 1974 Warnig started his career at the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, and entered its foreign intelligence (HVA) on April 1, 1975. (According to Warnig's STASI personnel file , his code names include Hans Detleff, Arthur from 9 January 1986, and Ökonom (economist) from 3 July 1976.) Warnig allegedly worked with KGB officer Vladimir Putin. The two men collaborated on recruiting West German citizens for the KGB. Warnig, however, has denied this by saying that they met for the first time in 1991, when Putin was the head of the Committee for External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor's Office.

In the late 1970s, Warnig received five years of training on how to infiltrate banks in West Germany.

Warnig was in West Germany to gain "economic enlightenment" from such companies as BASF, Rheinbraun, Data Becker, Thyssen, Krupp, and Deutsche Bank.

After German reunification After the fall of Communism he resigned as a major from the Stasi in 1989.

Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in Saint Petersburg, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991. Warnig became chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian's subsidiary. In 2004–05, the bank advised on the controversial forced sale of Yukos assets (see Yukos shareholders v. Russia). From 2015 until July 2023 he was CEO of Nord Stream 2 AG.

As of 2014, Warnig was on the board of directors of Bank Rossiya which is often referred to as "Putin's Wallet".

During violent gang wars involving the Tambov Gang while it was taking control of St. Petersburg's energy trade in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin, fearing for the safety of his daughters Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, sent them to Germany, where Warnig served as their legal guardian.

From 2012, Warnig led the supervisory board of the Russian aluminum company Rusal but was forced to resign in 2018, when the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on Rusal.

Sanctions Warnig was from 2006 until May 2016 Sanctions were reimposed on him on February 23, 2022, in response to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Warnig was managing director of Nord Stream 2 AG since the company was established in 2006 until July 2023.

Personal life According to Warnig's STASI personnel file , he speaks French and Russian in addition to German.

Warnig married on his 24th birthday, soon afterwards his son Stefan and his daughter Claudia were born. Warnig is now married to the Russian Elena Semjonova, whom he met in Saint Petersburg at the end of the 1990s. They have two sons, the family lives in Staufen im Breisgau and as of 2023 the couple still had condominiums in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. His son Stefan Warnig was the owner and chef of a café in Berlin-Schöneberg, the "Café des Artistes", which was considered to be Putin's favorite restaurant in Germany.