Gref's Daughter Signed A Declaration That She Does Not Support The War
13- 12.07.2025, 14:18
- 5,068
Maria Gref has been granted neutral status by the International Equestrian Federation.
Maria, the daughter of Russian Sberbank chief Herman Gref, has been granted neutral status by the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), which will allow her to compete in international competitions without her country's flag and anthem. To do so, she had to sign a declaration that she does not support Russia's war in Ukraine, the "We Can Explain" (MO) reported.
The FEI told reporters that a check conducted by the federation revealed no compromising information or doubts about the rider's credibility. "Also, no information was found to indicate that Maria Gref expressed support for or commented on Russia's invasion of Ukraine," a spokesman for the equestrian federation added. He added that Herman Gref "is classified as a politically significant person, but this classification applies only to him."
Maria Gref is a candidate master of sport in dressage, and her family owns several expensive horses. According to the database of the Russian Equestrian Federation (FESR), in the spring and summer of 2004, she participated in several junior dressage competitions in Russia on a gelding owned by her mother Yana Gref. According to MO sources, the 20-year-old Maria recently moved that horse to London, where she has been living and training for about two years.
As of the end of June, in addition to Maria Gref, the FEI had granted neutral status to 26 other Russian riders.
Herman Gref is under international sanctions
Sberbank CEO Herman Gref is considered one of the main so-called "systemic liberals" in Russian President Vladimir Putin's entourage. After the outbreak of a full-scale war in Ukraine, Gref was added to the sanctions lists of the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand and Ukraine.
According to an investigation by Project, published in early 2023, Gref uses business jets owned by Sberbank to fly to Caribbean resorts and to Baden-Baden, Germany. Journalists cited an extract from the cadastral book, according to which Gref owns an apartment in Baden-Baden with an estimated value of 300-400 thousand euros. In Russia, the head of Sberbank lives in a four-story mansion on Rublevskoye highway, which costs at least 250 million rubles, according to the material. In addition, the authors of the investigation found a close connection between Gref and the Luxembourg investment fund Altera Capital with a total of up to $500 million.
"MO" quotes Ilya Shumanov of Transparency International Russia, who called the fact that they do not affect relatives of people subject to restrictions a "systemic vulnerability" in the sanctions regime. "Sanctions were conceived as a blow to elites - to their assets and lifestyle. But in practice they often affect them only formally. Herman Gref has been under sanctions for a long time, while his daughter Maria trains expensive horses without any problems and lives a quite ordinary life. Everything is according to the rules: she is not under sanctions, she has not made any political statements, she does not raise the Russian flag, but in reality she continues to use the resources created at the expense of her father's position," Shumanov points out.
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