When President Vladimir Putin needed billions of roubles to build facilities for the Sochi Winter Olympics or fund spending in a region of Ukraine claimed by Russian separatists, he turned to Vnesheconombank (VEB).
So when it emerged that Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special adviser, had met the ailing state development bank’s chairman Sergei Gorkov in New York in December, it set alarm bells ringing with US investigators examining ties between Mr Trump’s inner circle and some of the Kremlin’s power-brokers.
