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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with By Russian oligarch standards, Vladimir Lisin (lead image) – iron-ore and coalminer, steelmaker, land and sea transporter, shipbuilder — is the only honest one. In the acquisition, enlargement,  and protection of his asset holdings over thirty years, he has also managed to defeat the dishonest ones, starting with Oleg Deripaska,  then […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with It was the US strategy for dismembering the Soviet Union, and then destroying the surviving Russian part, to install individual politicians and formations of economic assets controlled by Washington. The first chosen was Boris Yeltsin; then his prime minister Yegor Gaidar and chief of staff Anatoly Chubais; and then the oligarchs […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with For more than twenty years – that’s from the beginning of President Vladimir Putin’s term in office – the residents of Chelyabinsk have believed in the romantic story of how truth would triumph over deceit, law over criminality,  in their battle to breathe the city air, drink the city water, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with In the history of the privatization of Russia’s industrial polluters no oligarch has been dirtier, penalized more often,  and avoided court and state regulators more regularly than the steel, coke and coal producer, Igor Zyuzin. No one has more faithfully and profitably lobbied for Zyuzin’s benefit in parliament and government […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow   @bears_with Igor Zyuzin (lead image), owner of the Mechel steel and coal group, and one of the few Russian metals oligarchs not presently sanctioned  by the US, is a running sore on the Kremlin’s policy of halting,  and also continuing,  industrial pollution. From his base in Chelyabinsk, and at factories, mines, […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with As democracy goes in states at war, in Russia  there is more of it —  faction fighting, public criticism,  media debate — about battlefield operations, wins and losses, than there is on the NATO side, in the US, Canada, Germany, France or England. By contrast, on the conduct of domestic economic […]

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by John Helmer, Moscow  @bears_with “We have overcome the situation when certain powers in the government were essentially usurped by oligarch clans,” President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly last week. About  the overcoming part, his staff aren’t so sure. The week before, when asked to identify the guest list at Putin’s annual Christmas reception for […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow This is the week — the last one before the corporate Catholic Christmas holiday commences and runs into the Russian New Year holiday —  when President Vladimir Putin hosts a supper reception for the oligarchs. It’s a very sensitive affair – for the oligarchs invited, disinvited,  or excluded; and for the […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Kremlin through Dmitry Peskov, the President’s spokesman, has endorsed Alexei Kudrin’s call for changing Russia’s foreign and defence policy to save the country from American sanctions. “We can perhaps agree with the point of view [of Kudrin],” Peskov said, “   except [that the reason] is not the foreign policy of […]

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By John Helmer, Moscow The Anglo-American candidate to be President of Russia, replacing Vladimir Putin, reprivatizing Russia’s resource assets, and emasculating the country’s defences, has made a fresh pitch. Alexei Kudrin, sacked as Finance Minister,  demoted as presidential economic adviser, then appointed  Chairman of the Accounting Chamber five months ago,  gave a speech to the […]