Arash Repac

<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="212" data-total-count="3180">Arash Repac, chief executive of Lukoil Eurasia Petrol, offered a different explanation for the talks. He said that a meeting he attended with SCL in Turkey involved a promotional campaign with local soccer teams.</p>

<div id="newsletter-promo" class="newsletter-signup auto-newsletter" data-newsletter-productcode="" data-newsletter-producttitle="">“We needed somebody to guide us with the customer data that we were collecting,” he wrote in response to a question from The Times. “Even though our campaign went ahead, we decided not to cooperate with SCL. No contracts were signed.”</div>

<p id="story-continues-4" class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="212" data-total-count="3634">But Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge Analytica and develop the company’s voter-profiling technology, said Lukoil showed interest in how the company used data to tailor messaging to American voters.</p>

<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="99" data-total-count="3733">“I remember being super confused,” said Mr. Wylie, who took part in one of the Lukoil meetings.</p>

<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="195" data-total-count="3928">“I kept asking Alexander, ‘Can you explain to me what they want?’” he said, referring to Mr. Nix. “I don’t understand why Lukoil wants to know about political targeting in America.”</p>

<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="244" data-total-count="4172">“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially.</p>

<p class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="244" data-total-count="4172"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-russia.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage">Data Firm Tied to Trump Campaign Talked Business With Russians - The New York Times</a></p>

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