TIME: Russia secretly helped Venezuela with the launch of the cryptocurrency El Petro

Members of the government of the Russian Federation and a number of Russian businessmen have provided active support in launching the national crypto currency of Venezuela, says TIME.

The publication refers to several wishing to remain anonymous officials who are familiar with the situation around El Petro. In particular, it is claimed that the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, was advised by Russian billionaires directly connected with the Kremlin. It is assumed that, having secured the support of President Putin, they were responsible for developing El Petro.

TIME names the names of at least two of these people: Denis Druzhkov and Fedor Bogorodsky. They were allegedly behind the development of El Petro, a joint venture set up by officials and businessmen of Venezuela and Russia to circumvent the sanctions that were imposed on the two countries.

In particular, the publication gives an accessible photo in an open search from the presentation of El Petro, which took place on February 20. It depicts directly the President of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, and in the front row in front of him and the Russian "advisers" have settled down.

This information, of course, does not in any way mean that these persons are engaged in any illegal business. However, according to TIME, Druzhkov and Bogorodsky are not just billionaires with close ties to the Russian banks that were under sanctions, but also those who are in the Kremlin.

Moreover, they are far from the main person in the El Petro project. According to TIME, citing anonymity of the top manager of one of the state-owned Russian banks, which deals with crypto-currencies, the whole enterprise was not only supervised by high-ranking Kremlin officials, but was initially approved by President Putin.

“People close to Putin, they told him this is how to avoid the sanctions,” says the executive, who spoke to TIME on condition of anonymity. “This is how the whole thing started.”.