The relationship between Donald Trump’s eldest son and oligarch Umar Kremlev appears to have taken a controversial new turn.
POOL/Alec Tabak/via REUTERS
Donald Trump Jr. has allegedly been chatting about potential business deals with the Kremlin-linked oligarch who helped pay for his lavish wedding party in the Bahamas.
The president’s eldest son sat down to talk shop with Umar Kremlev during a trip to Kazakhstan earlier this year, according to two sources familiar with the meeting who spoke with the independent Russian outlet Important Stories, a partner of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project network.
Kremlev is the head of the sanctioned International Boxing Association, which helped bankroll Trump Jr.’s lavish May wedding to Bettina Anderson and later joined him on an August hunting trip in scenic western Mongolia.
Trump Jr. is under intense scrutiny over his friendship with oligarch Kremlev.
He’s also believed to be a close confidant of sanctioned Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin.
Anderson has called Kremlev a “dear friend” of the couple. Trump Jr. has insisted there is nothing untoward about his friendship with the powerful Russian tycoon, and it remains unclear what exactly he may have discussed with Kremlev during their alleged meeting in Kazakhstan.
The president’s son was apparently at pains to avoid being photographed with the Russian businessman during the pair’s trip to Mongolia.
Instagram/Dastan Mukhamedrakhim
But claims that the relationship may now have grown to include prospective business dealings will likely fuel further security concerns about Trump Jr.’s closeness to an alleged member of Putin’s inner circle.
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The first family is already facing intense scrutiny over claims it is cashing in on its influence under the second Trump presidency, with Democrats gearing up for congressional investigations after sweeping the House and Senate at Tuesday’s midterms.
Sources who know Kremlev personally told Important Stories that the businessman is a significant enough figure in Moscow that he travels with armed guards in vehicles provided by Russia’s National Guard.
That’s a level of federal protection afforded only to powerful state officials or other figures designated by the Russian president himself.
Kremlin is understood to be close with Putin.
MAXIM SHIPENKOV/via REUTERS
Kremlev’s associates have also said he enjoys a close relationship with Alexei Rubezhnoi, the head of Russia’s presidential security service, who allegedly helped him build and protect his business empire.
President Trump has spent the better part of a decade fending off questions about his own connections to the Putin regime.
U.S. investigators concluded that Moscow had interfered in the 2016 presidential election to help him win, even as his company chased plans for a skyscraper in Moscow deep into that campaign.
Trump Jr. also met with a Russian lawyer during that campaign after being offered damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Special counsel Robert Mueller later documented extensive contacts between Trump associates and Russian-linked figures, but did not establish that his 2016 campaign conspired or coordinated with the Kremlin.
The family’s business ventures since Trump retook the White House have brought further scrutiny of its dealings with wealthy figures from the former Soviet Union.
The Trump brothers are under intense scrutiny over their business dealings under their dad’s second administration.
The Daily Beast revealed in May that a developer involved in Eric and Donald Trump Jr.’s planned 70-story skyscraper in Tbilisi, Georgia, had ties to billionaire former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, who made his fortune in Russia.
Washington sanctioned Ivanishvili in 2024 for helping the Kremlin undermine democracy in his own country.
A subsequent investigation by the Daily Beast, its sister Substack PunchUp, and The Newsground uncovered a further Russian connection through Biograpi Living, a company publicly identified as a partner on the Tbilisi project.
The group is partly owned by Paata Gamgoneishvili, a Georgian oligarch who built his fortune in Moscow alongside longtime business associate Roland Isaev.
The Trumps have backed a new skyscraper in Tbilisi, capital of the Republic of Georgia.
Biograpi denied that either it or Gamgoneishvili had any actual stake in the development despite the Trumps calling the firm out by name in its press release earlier this year.
And in September, it emerged that developers behind the tower deal had paid $85 million to a foundation owned by Ivanishvili for the land beneath the project. The relatives overseeing that foundation are not themselves subject to U.S. sanctions.
Trump Jr. also already has business interests in Kazakhstan, where he reportedly met with Kremlev earlier this year.
In 2025, he invested with his brother Eric Trump in Skyline Builders, which later bought a 20 percent stake in tungsten mining company Kaz Resources.
The U.S. and Kazakhstan signed a deal six days after that purchase to grant a firm in the Kaz Resources group access to tungsten deposits in the country’s Karaganda region, some of the largest in the world.
At least two federal agencies in the U.S. have since floated the idea of providing a combined $1.6 billion in funding for that project.
The Daily Beast has contacted Trump Jr.’s representatives and the White House for comment on this story.
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