New York

A PROMINENT Silicon Valley investor who was an early backer of Facebook Inc partnered in two investments with the Russian state-controlled bank VTB Bank PJSC before it was sanctioned, his spokesman has confirmed.

Yuri Milner, the Russian-born founder of DST Global, also invested US$850,000 of his personal money last year in Cadre, a real-estate investing platform co-founded and partially owned by the family of Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser. Mr Milner's spokesman said that VTB played no part in his Cadre investment, which was done solely on the business merits of Cadre.