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Artur Matthias Warnig (born 26 July 1955) is a former East German Stasi officer and a Russia-based businessman who has worked closely with Vladimir Putin. He joined the Stasi, the secret police of communist East Germany, in 1974. During the Cold War he engaged in financial crimes by attempting to infiltrate and spy against banks in the Germany (West Germany). After the Stasi was disbanded following the unification of Germany, he was left unemployed and moved to Russia, where he took part in business ventures in cooperation with Putin, whom he had already known as a Stasi officer.
He was managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, a company that is majority-owned by the Russian government and that is responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. He was managing director of Nord Stream 2 AG. Warnig is under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considers to be a Russian geopolitical project. As of 2023 he is also under personal sanctions in the United Kingdom as a collaborator with the Putin regime who is "involved in destabilising Ukraine or undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine, or obtaining a benefit from or supporting the Government of Russia."
In the late 1970s, Warnig received five years of training on how to infiltrate banks in West Germany.
Warnig was in West Germany to gain "economic enlightenment" from such companies as BASF, Rheinbraun, Data Becker, Thyssen, Krupp, and Deutsche Bank.
Warnig had apparently spied on Dresdner Bank AG in West Germany for two years in the late 1980s before he began to work in the bank.
From 1986 onward Warnig was a resident of Düsseldorf living in an apartment in the district of Bilk as a Trade office of the GDR.
Dresdner Bank attempted to get a banking operating license in Saint Petersburg, where Putin was now in charge of foreign economic relations. Warnig took part in negotiations. The office was opened in 1991. Report Links Putin to Dresdner St. Petersburg Times Warnig became chairman of the Board of Directors of Dresdner Bank ZAO, Dresdner Bank Russian's subsidiary. In 2004–05, the bank advised on the controversial forced sale of Yukos assets (see Yukos shareholders v. Russia).
In 2006 he changed to Nord Stream AG, operator of the first Baltic Sea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany until May 2016. Tagesregister-Nr. 6425 18.05.2016 / CHE-112.660.698 / 02844579. In: SHAB.ch, retrieved 9 May 2025 (PDF). From 2015 until July 2023 he was CEO of Nord Stream 2 AG. Mutation Nord Stream 2 AG, Steinhausen. In: SHAB.ch, 25 July 2023 (PDF).
As of 2014, Warnig was on the board of directors of Bank Rossiya which is often referred to as "Putin's Wallet".
During violent gang wars involving the Tambov Gang while it was taking control of St. Petersburg's energy trade in the 1990s, Vladimir Putin, fearing for the safety of his daughters Maria Vorontsova and Katerina Tikhonova, sent them to Germany, where Warnig served as their legal guardian. Alt URL Archive is in Russian and this
From 2012, Warnig led the supervisory board of the Russian aluminum company Rusal but was forced to resign in 2018, when the first Trump administration imposed sanctions on Rusal.
On 24 February 2023, the UK government also sanctioned Warnig in relation to the Russo-Ukrainian War.
Warnig married on his 24th birthday, soon afterwards his son Stefan and his daughter Claudia were born.
Warnig is now married to the Russian Elena Semjonova, whom he met in Saint Petersburg at the end of the 1990s. They have two sons, the family lives in Staufen im Breisgau and as of 2023 the couple still had condominiums in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
His son Stefan Warnig was the owner and chef of a café in Berlin-Schöneberg, the "Café des Artistes", which was considered to be Putin's favorite restaurant in Germany.
After German reunification
After the fall of Communism he resigned as a major from the Stasi in 1989.
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Sanctions
Warnig was from 2006 until May 2016 managing director (CEO) of Nord Stream AG, which is majority-owned by the Russian government and responsible for the construction and operation of the Nord Stream undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Warnig and Nordstream AG were under personal sanctions in the United States over his ties to the Russian government and Putin, and what the US government considered to be a Russian geopolitical project. The Biden administration lifted those in May 2021. Sanctions were reimposed on him on February 23, 2022, in response to the 2021–2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Warnig was managing director of Nord Stream 2 AG since the company was established in 2006 until July 2023.
Personal life
According to Warnig's STASI personnel file (), he speaks French and Russian in addition to German. Alternate archive Alternate archive
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