Sources at the Hudson Institute said that Kleptocracy Initiative would continue, but did not comment on the Blavatnik gift. (Disclosure: I am a visiting fellow at Hudson, but it is an honorary position, and I have neither received money from the institute nor performed work for it.)

Mr. Blavatnik’s glory at Hudson largely lasted just one night. But he did succeed in attaching his name to Harvard for generations to come. On Nov. 8, Harvard Medical School announced that the Blavatnik Family Foundation had pledged $200 million to the institution, creating the Blavatnik Institute and Blavatnik Harvard Life Lab. This follows on a $50 million gift by the foundation to the university in 2013.

(Asked for comment, a Harvard spokeswoman said in a statement: “Harvard Medical School is deeply grateful for the generous and transformational commitment from the Blavatnik Family Foundation that will support discovery at HMS propelling the school’s mission to transform human health.” She also referred me to someone who handles media relations for the foundation.)

As a Harvard alumna, I find this appalling. Mr. Blavatnik — who, with a net worth of over $20 billion, is the richest man in Britain and the 29th-richest in America — cut his teeth in the brutal aluminum wars in 1990s Russia alongside Oleg Deripaska and Roman Abramovich, who has estimated that every three days someone in the business was murdered. Together, they acquired an empire of recently privatized metals and energy companies, often for outrageously low prices.

Those deals, and others, involved a series of transactions with individuals with checkered pasts, deep Kremlin ties and a reputation for corruption. Though Mr. Blavatnik is not under American sanctions himself, many of his associates are, including Mr. Deripaska. The aluminum giant Rusal, where he is a major shareholder, is facing direct sanctions due to go into effect soon; Rosneft, an energy company owned by the Russian government where he also made millions, expects the ax to fall shortly.