By John Helmer, Moscow Look carefully at who is in the driving seat. The records of RTI Limited (formerly Rusal International Trading), the next to highest control entity in the corporate organization of United Company Rusal, show that it was registered on October 27, 2006, one day after the parent company was registered. At the […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, July 15th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Norilsk Nickel has declared war on Alexander Popov (image centre), a 57-year old veteran of the oil industry and the new head of the Federal Agency for Subsoil Use, Rosnedra. In the circumstances this can mean only one thing — Vladimir Potanin (right), the dominant shareholder of Norilsk Nickel, has decided […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 12th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Fifteen years ago, the American Journal of Psychiatry reported research that not all obsessive-compulsive disorders are alike. Two individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the scientific evidence showed, may have totally different and non-overlapping symptom patterns. For example, the obsession with counting, hoarding, arranging and collecting doesn’t usually accompany the compulsion for hand-washing, […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska’s sole defence against having to pay Mikhail Chernoy (Michael Cherney) the dividends, assets, interest, and the corpus of his patron’s stake in United Company Rusal is that Cherney extorted the money by presenting him with a trust agreement and contract, and threatening to break his bones if he didn’t […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 9th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow An 8-year long case charging Oleg Deripaska and his Russian Aluminium (Rusal) group with fraud and corruption in acquiring aluminium assets, gas and electricity supply and port outlet in a rigged privatization scheme has ended in Deripaska’s defeat and the loss of his assets. The court ruling was issued on Friday, […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, July 8th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow A century ago and longer, the Ottomans understood not to press the Russians in close encounters; the Turks are slow learners. After several recent episodes in which the Turkish armed forces have attempted to interfere with Russian vessels delivering cargo to Syria, the Russians have now delivered the message that Turkish […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 6th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Money laundering is one of those things that is usually accompanied by a lot more gossip than conviction. Exactly what gets washed and for whose benefit are difficult to pin down, usually because those who do it are smarter than your average washerwoman. Still, if the Swiss money police are on […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 5th, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska, chief executive of United Company Rusal, is prosecuting his old friend and Rusal veteran, Andrei Raikov, on charges already dismissed by the Moscow police and the Moscow courts, because Raikov, according to his representatives, has refused to testify for Deripaska against another old friend, Mikhail Chernoy (Michael Cherney). Cherney’s […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow At a closed-door hearing today at the Chelyabinsk Arbitrazh Court, Judge Natalia Bulavintseva again refused to hear argument for and against the proposed half-billion dollar acquisition of an Australian iron-ore miner, Flinders Mines, by Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK). The court secretary Sergei Povalyaev said the judge ordered the hearing postponed for […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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By John Helmer, Moscow When a powerful Kremlin official recently confided that he values the usefulness of UK High Court proceedings involving some of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen, he probably wasn’t thinking of the case which concluded on Friday with a judgement issued by Justice Sir Geoffrey Vos. The Russian official was intimating that the British […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 2nd, 2012
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