44 Time August 26, 2019
Nation
sales executive. Over dinner at La Rôtis-
serie, a restaurant with a view of the city’s
12th century cathedral, the executive told
Bouchard the company was ready to do
business. “They said, ‘If we get the sanc-
tions off, let’s meet again,’ ” he recalls.
“And I said, ‘Wow, that’s interesting.’ ”
By mid-April, an exuberant Bouchard
was standing at the New York Stock
Exchange, announcing the Russian
company had purchased a 40% stake
in the Ashland plant for $200 million.
Back in Kentucky, the news was met
with celebration and relief. “People
who were skeptical are seeing that it’s
big time,” says Chris Jackson, a 42-year-
old former steel-mill worker. When he
enrolled in a training program for the
Braidy plant, Jackson recalls, many in
the community doubted the jobs would
ever materialize. “The Rusal agreement
just showed everybody this is legit.”
But to some observers, the story of
how a Kremlin-linked aluminum giant of-
fered an economic lifeline to Appalachia
is an object lesson of the exact opposite.
Critics of the deal, both Democratic and
Republican, say it gives Moscow politi-
cal influence that could undermine na-
tional security. Pointing to Moscow’s useLast summer, it looked likethings were finally about tochange for Ashland, Ky.For two decades, the jobs that once supported this Appalachian
outpost of 20,000 people on a bend in the Ohio River have been
disappearing: 100 laid off from the freight-rail maintenance shop;
dozens pink-slipped at the oil refinery; 1,100 axed at the steel mill
that looms over the landscape. Then, on June 1, 2018, standing on
a stage flanked by the state’s governor and business leaders, Craig
Bouchard, the CEO of Braidy Industries, pointed across a vast green
field and described a vision as though he could already see it.
In the little-used park just off I-64, Braidy would build the larg-
est aluminum mill constructed in the U.S. in nearly four decades.
The $1.7 billion plant would take aluminum slab and roll it into
the material used in everything from cars and planes to soda cans.
It would employ 600 full-time workers earning twice the average
salary in the region, Bouchard said, and create 18,000 other jobs
across the state. Gesturing at the empty space around him, the CEO
described an employee health center, a technical lab, a day care and
hundreds of employees walking around “carrying iPads.” More than
just making aluminum, the plant would help “rebuild northeast
Kentucky, and in fact all of Appalachia,” Bouchard told the crowd.
There was just one problem: Bouchard still needed a major inves-
tor to make the vision a reality. After months of searching, the only
option was problematic. Rusal, the Russian aluminum giant, was
tailor-made to join forces on the project. But it was under sanctions
imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department. Its billionaire owner,
Oleg Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s,
was being investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller for his
potential involvement in the effort to swing the 2016 presiden-
tial election. The Treasury sanctions—punishment for the Krem-
lin’s “malign activities” around the world, including “attempting
to subvert Western democracies”—made it illegal for Americans
to do business with Rusal or its boss.
So Bouchard faced a dilemma. Keeping his promise to bring
good new jobs—a project that had already been touted by the White
House—would mean partnering with a firm that had deep ties to the
Kremlin. Which mattered more, the economic needs of a depressed
region or the national-security concerns raised by the Mueller in-
vestigation? Hundreds of miles from the congressional hearings and
think-tank debates over Russian influence in Washington, Braidy
Industries and the surrounding community had to weigh whether
Russia’s 2016 plot had caused enough damage to American secu-
rity, or American pride, to spurn a chance at an economic miracle.
Bouchard concluded they had no choice. He knew it could be
controversial, if not outright illegal, to work on a deal with Rusal
while it was still fighting to free itself from U.S. sanctions, he told
TIME in an interview. But after a long talk with his lawyers about
the risks of even discussing such a partnership, he traveled to Zurich
in January 2019 for what he calls a “meet and greet” with a Rusal