Who is Umar Kremlev? Russian businessman who paid for part of Trump Jr.’s wedding

The Russian businessman who paid for the afterparty at President Donald Trump’s eldest son’s wedding has close ties to the Kremlin, including heading an international boxing federation that has sought to counter Russia’s isolation following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Donald Trump Jr. confirmed Umar Kremlev paid for the afterparty of his wedding in the Bahamas this year after ProPublica first reported Kremlev had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the festivities. Trump Jr. and President Donald Trump have downplayed the payments as a generous wedding gift.

Umar Kremlev received a state honor from Putin

Umar Kremlev is known as the highly controversial president of the International Boxing Association (IBA). He reached that position after rising through Russia’s own boxing world, reportedly thanks to his links with key Kremlin security figures, and has since come to be widely seen as an instrument of soft power for Putin through the sporting body.

In 2024, Putin personally awarded Kremlev with a state honor, the Order of Friendship, in a ceremony at the Kremlin, for his efforts in promoting Russian boxing despite an Olympics ban.

Kremlev’s rise has been linked by Russian investigative media to his close relationship with the head of Putin’s presidential security, Alexey Rubezhnoy. 

Kremlev also has strong ties to a pro-Putin organization, “Healthy Fatherland”, which Ukraine has sanctioned for its alleged role in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children from occupied areas during the war. Ukraine has also sanctioned Kremlev personally for his public support for the war.

Born in 1982 in Serpukhov, a town south of Moscow, by his own account, Kremlev was an aspiring boxer himself. In the early 2000s, he picked up criminal convictions for extortion and battery, according to the investigative outlet Proekt, which published a lengthy article on Kremlev two years ago.

Following his criminal convictions, he changed his name from Lutfulloyev to Kremlev, according to Proekt. 

During that period, Kremlev began taking part in meetings of the ultra-nationalist pro-Putin biker gang, the Night Wolves, which were later sanctioned by the United States for their role in Russia’s invasion of Crimea. It was through the biker group that Kremlev reportedly met Putin’s future bodyguard, Rubehznoy, according to Proekt. 

Kremlev in the mid-2000s had a stint as a little-known boxing promoter, during which he represented the retired American fighter Roy Jones Jr. After Jones was brought to occupied Crimea to meet Putin, Jones received Russian citizenship.

From there, Kremlev rose in Russian boxing. In 2017, he was appointed secretary general of Russia’s national boxing federation, which has become closely connected with powerful members of the Kremlin elite. Rubezhnoy was a member of the supervisory board, according to public records, as was Igor Sechin, the chief executive of Rosneft and one of Putin’s most important allies.

Kremlev would next take on a more influential role, elected in 2020 as president of the International Boxing Association (at the time known as AIBA). His appointment has come to be seen by critics as a takeover of the sport’s governing body by the Kremlin.

International Boxing Association controversies

Under Kremlev, the IBA faced extraordinary controversy. The International Olympic Committee in 2023 took the unprecedented step of expelling the association over alleged ongoing failure to root out corruption and the Kremlin’s influence following the invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlev refused to accept the IOC’s ban on Russian athletes competing under their national flag after the invasion. Russia’s state gas company, Gazprom, became the IBA’s main sponsor and Kremlev moved much of the association’s operations to Russia. 

Many countries’ national federations, including the United States’, broke with the IBA and set up their own rival international body. Kremlev has continued to hold competitions with some countries that recognize his association and has frequently attacked the IOC.

Kremlev also played a role in the controversy at the 2024 Paris Olympics around the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, in which the IBA claimed Khelif was transgender and should not be permitted to compete as a woman.  

Kremlev’s business interests in Russia have meanwhile blossomed. In 2024, he acquired the country’s largest car dealership group, Rolf, after it was nationalised and seized from a businessman critical of Putin. 

Proekt reports Kremlev also now owns three of Russia’s largest betting companies.

It is not clear how Donald Trump Jr. was first introduced to Kremlev. The two appeared together on a panel at an IBA forum in Istanbul in September 2025. In a video posted by Kremlev, Trump Jr. praises him for “the steps that you are taking to try to eliminate that corruption which has become so obvious that it has turned off some of the fan base.” 

Kremlev in July also arranged a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, which was due to be hosted by the manosphere influencer Andrew Tate. Tate was arrested outside the arena on charges of alleged rape and sex trafficking brought by U.K. police.

After the ProPublica report broke, Trump Jr.’s wife, Bettina Anderson, in an Instagram post wrote, “It’s unfortunate that something so personal and happy can be recast as something political or sinister simply because of who someone is or where they come from.”

For his part, Kremlev on Tuesday published a video on his Telegram channel where he did not explicitly address it. “What we should accumulate is not money, but emotions,” he said. “Money loses its value over time…, but all the moments we have experienced with open hearts stay with us forever.”