Who is Mr Milner?

So you want to know who Yury Milner – the head of DST, the Russian fund that has bought up stakes in Facebook and Groupon – really is? Join the club.

Milner is notoriously secretive – and litigious. That might explain why most profiles of the Russian investor tend to glow off the page.

Forbes has added to that list with this profile. It’s a useful read for some of the technical background looking at how Milner went from the first Russian to attend the Wharton School at UPenn to leading the first outside investor that Facebook brought in (DST owns about 10 percent in Facebook, as well as around 5 percent in Groupon and online gaming site Zynga; it was also reportedly looking into Twitter).

What it misses out on, as do all stories on Milner thus far (see reasons above), is the man’s relationship with the Kremlin, particularly via co-investor Alisher Usmanov, the metals magnate and chair of Gazprom’s investment arm. (It also misses out on part of Usmanov’s (alleged) criminal background, which I won’t mention here but you can read about here.)

Russia is not a place where business flourishes independently. Is the Kremlin driving DST’s investments? Or at least approving them? You can get part of the answer here.

For now, part of Milner’s hallmark style, aside from his aggressive approach, is never asking for a board seat. Will that continue in the future? Lots of questions remain.