He is probably the second most powerful man in Russia: Alexej Miller. The Gazprom boss is Putin's fundraiser, oligarch and new gas warrior. He lives in obscene luxury and is currently blackmailing Europe. What is he really planning?
A date and a name scare Germany: July 21 and Alexej Miller. On this day it will be decided whether the powerful Gazprom boss Germany will turn off the gas supply completely or not. Nothing has been flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline since this week, maintenance work has been announced until July 21 and not only the federal government is openly afraid that no gas will flow after that either. That would trigger an economic emergency in this country with government gas rationing. There would probably be energy lockdowns in the economy - Germany and Europe threatened to slide into a deep recession. For Russia, gas is now an overt weapon in the hybrid war against the West. Moscow can exact revenge for the Western sanctions and for arms deliveries to Ukraine.
All eyes are now on 60-year-old Alexej Miller. The Gazprom boss leads the world's largest gas company with demonstrative strength from Europe's tallest skyscraper, the 462-meter-high Gazprom Tower in Saint Petersburg. He no longer hides the fact that he pursues tough Russian foreign policy and wants to impose his conditions on the West. At the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, he announced: "Our product, our rules. We no longer play by rules that we didn't create."
One country after the other is punished by Miller with delivery stops if it is not politically opportune. Gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria were suspended at the end of April and to the Netherlands at the end of May. Not even half has been delivered to Germany since mid-June, and as of this week 70 percent less than ordered has suddenly flowed to Austria and Italy.
Miller cynically announces "energy stability for Russia's friends" and a "redistribution of the world's energy resources." Friendly China will get more Russian gas, hostile Western Europe less, he openly threatens. The Gazprom boss is maddeningly aware of his position of strength.
It wasn't always like that in his life. "He'll hang himself in a month," scoffed his predecessor Rem Vjachirew when he was fired by Putin in 2001 and replaced by Miller. At the time, Miller, 39, was an insecure, shy man with a thin mustache. "He entered his own office on the fifth floor so uncertainly, as if he feared he could be chased away in the next moment," the German press agency quoted his employees as saying.
But Miller didn't just have a powerful godfather behind him in Vladimir Putin. The Leningrad KGB power circle with the intelligence chiefs Sergei Naryshkin, Alexander Bortnikov and Nikolai Patrushev also protected him. Miller has known them all from Leningrad since the earliest KGB days. Despite his Russian-German ancestors, Miller has been a permanent member of this secret service brotherhood since the days of chaos after the fall of the Wall. In the St. Petersburg city administration under the then mayor Anatoly Sobchak, Putin headed the office for foreign relations, his shy employee was called Alexei Miller. Putin demanded bribes for all kinds of licenses and services, which Miller had to manage. To this day, it is sometimes called "Putin's wallet" in Russia.
Putin appreciates not only Miller's unconditional loyalty and discretion, but also the intelligence behind all kinds of uptightness. Miller is Putin's fiercely smart accountant. In this role, he has become something of a super-oligarch in Russia. After 20 years as head of Gazprom and close associate of Putin, many see him as the second most powerful man in Russia. Forbes magazine listed him among the most powerful people in the world for the first time in 2013.
Miller's Gazprom group accounts for almost five percent of Russia's gross domestic product. He has access to one seventh of the world's gas reserves. But Gazprom not only produces gas, but is also active in the oil business and is a monopolist in the Russian pipeline business. He also owns his own bank and the largest Russian media group. In 2021, Gazprom, with around 473,000 employees, had sales of EUR 133.8 billion and profits of EUR 27.4 billion.
Miller politicizes his business down to the linguistic details. At the sports broadcaster Match TV, he forces the commentators to refrain from using English terms. He has put more than 100 words on a ban index. Accordingly, "Loser", "Playoff", "Coach", "Performance", "Derby", "Restart" and "Shortlist" will be translated into Russian in the future. Journalist Stanislav Gridassov, who first published the list on the Telegram news channel, said: "It is well known that the head of Gazprom (...) is a passionate fighter for the purity of the Russian language." Gazprom Media owns 9 national television channels, 29 special interest channels, 10 radio stations and 2 publishing houses.
In a spectacular video, the team led by Kremlin critic and imprisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny addressed the enormous power and enormous wealth that Miller is accumulating. The unveiling video shows Miller's pompous villa estate "Greenfield" in a Moscow suburb. The swanky building imitates the White House in Washington and is said to have around 8,500 square meters of living space, including a mini golf course, home cinema, train, chapel and a cloakroom exclusively for fur coats. The video claims that Miller owns around $750 million worth of real estate. These include villas and houses in Sochi, hotels in Gelendzhik and estates in Moscow.
The publication of the video is a big annoyance for Miller, who has been rather shy of the public for years. Ever since the war began in Ukraine, his empire has been under internal stress. Power struggles, intrigues and purges increase, a series of mysterious deaths shakes the company and rumors of a growing influence of the secret service make the rounds.
For Miller, too, July 21 becomes a defining moment of his power. Insiders report that he and his management team would like to resume gas deliveries to Germany in full - also to secure the lucrative flow of important foreign exchange from Germany and not to be damaged by their own boycott measures after the sanctions. Gazprom sees the delivery of the sanctioned Siemens Energy gas turbine as a "signal of Germany's willingness to cooperate".
The hawks in the Kremlin are even celebrating the turbine delivery as a power-political success - Germany has demonstratively circumvented the sanctions of the West. You want to reward that. "If the turbine comes after the repair, then that will allow for an increase in volume," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Of course, his credibility has shrunk beyond recognition in recent weeks. So everything is waiting for Miller and his decision on July 21st.
