The wealthiest cellist that ever lived
mainThe Financial Times, which is not part of the Panama Papers ring, has published a study of the offshore activities of the cellist Sergei Roldugin, who is linked to funds of $2 billion, possibly connected to his friend, President Putin.
The leaked documents show that Mr Roldugin has access to a complicated financial network run by Bank Rossiya, whose owner Yuri Kovalchuk set up a dacha co-operative outside St Petersburg in the 1990s with Mr Putin and several friends who went on to become billionaires. …
The leaks show that Mr Roldugin also owns shares in car manufacturers Kamaz and Avtovaz. They also reveal that other companies linked to the cellist received millions in payments from Russian oligarchs on extremely favourable terms that recall the donations used to build a $1bn “palace,” allegedly for Mr Putin, on the Black Sea near Sochi.
So that’s how its done.
Read on here.
Shocking, but not surprising. While Russia has to recover from the Soviet collapse, both economically and morally, with all the poverty for millions of Russians, the regime is skimming the country as much as it can. And all the while a big mouth about recovering the ‘greatness of the country’.
Does this get any notice inside Russia?
Yes, the “Panama Papers” are all over the news – for very good reasons!
But are Russians big into non-Russian news sources. From what I’ve read this is getting almost no coverage domestically.
Oh, you said *inside*! I somehow completely misread “outside”. Inside Russia – no idea. I am under the impression that the media there are rather tightly controlled, but I have never been to Russia myself, so I don’t know if that is really true. Would be interesting to hear about from someone who has that *inside* knowledge.
Thanks for the laugh!! Keep your nose wedged firmly in the Guardian, and make sure you parrot everything in it!!
When I have 3 seconds to spare, you can tell me everything you “know” about Russia!
That’s a completely pointless reply, when both Robert and me said we don’t know, but we would like to hear from someone who does. That’s not you, obviously.
Dunno about Robert, but I don’t read the Guardian.
Mysteriously all of today’s press revelations concern the millions of funds syphoned off by Ukraine’s President Poroshenko, and the bandit who protects and profits from him, Ihor Kolomoisky. All the documents and proofs of this monstrous chicanery have been published now.
Yet we hear not a word about this from the Disc-Slippers above, nor about the wretched poverty into which their Ukrainian “paradise” has sunk…
It’s as though they have wedged a bucket on their heads. Still waiting for the finger-pointiing about Russia to be substantiated with actual, errr…. facts.
But how unfair of me to demand facts… when empty smears are quite enough for their champion “Light-Handed” Luke Harding….
Perhaps they ought to be asking dear Luke how Kolomoisky came to “acquire” Ukrainian Airlines… and for so very, very little… and Kiev Borispol Airport, another of his Bargain Buys… and the Ukrainian National Air Traffic Control corporation, something else he snapped up for peanuts…
And on the day when the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has been forced to admit he used his dad’s offshore tax haven to launder his money in Panama…
… the posters here keep their buckets firmly on their heads, and keep pointing their fingers at… Vladimir Putin?