By John Helmer, Moscow Rinat Akhmetov (lead image, above left and right) is still the Ukraine’s richest man. If you believe the financial reports just issued by his Metinvest group, Ukraine’s largest steel, iron-ore, coal and coke maker, it’s a case of his singing all the way to the bank in Switzerland — without the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 24th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian and US intelligence versions of what preceded the destruction of Malaysian Airlines MH17 on July 17 have come close to agreement on the same set of facts. Their disagreements and conflicts of evidence are much smaller, by comparison. The Russians and Americans concur that a Buk-M1 missile battery (lead […]

by John Helmer - Wednesday, July 23rd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow In a few days’ time, on August 1, Gerda Taro would have turned 104. The encomiums would have been bound to describe her as the oldest, possibly the first, woman photojournalist. But Taro hasn’t made it. Instead, on July 26, 1937, she died after being crushed by a Spanish Republican tank […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 21st, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow The International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided on Thursday, July 17, that the Ukrainian government should not receive a new transfer of $1.4 billion, as previously scheduled on July 25. Instead, the IMF agreed with officials in the government of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk that they should spend […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 21st, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow United Company Rusal, the state aluminium monopoly controlled by Oleg Deripaska (right), has failed in a bid to ward off billion-dollar sanctions from Alpha Conde (centre), the President of Guinea, with an offer to start a cheap, new bauxite mine three years from now. Sources in Conakry, the capital of the […]

by John Helmer - Friday, July 18th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow In a decision announced last week, the US Department of Commerce did Victor Pinchuk, owner of Interpipe, the Ukraine’s leading pipemaker and exporter, a favour worth between $6 million and $9 million per annum for the next three years. At the same time, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ordered the […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 17th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow In the Broadway musical, My Fair Lady, elocution professor Henry Higgins fools an East European expert on spotting impostors. But believing he’s been fooled himself by his protégée, Eliza Doolittle, Higgins sings this lament to himself: “Men are so honest, so thoroughly square; Eternally noble, historically fair; Who, when you win, […]

by John Helmer - Monday, July 14th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow When it comes to Trojan horses, who better than the Government of Greece to judge. The Trojan Horse that’s meant is Leonid Lebedev (lead image), the three-term, 12-year Federation Council senator representing the Republic of Chuvashia. Lebedev claims to be a billionaire with control of a conglomerate called Sintez. Its cash […]

by John Helmer - Sunday, July 13th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow If Andrei Goncharenko paid £43 million for an asset worth no more than half as much, he has set something of a Russian record for business acumen. And he might well have kept that acumen secret, if not for a group of squabbling Englishmen wanting commissions for arranging the deal, and […]

by John Helmer - Thursday, July 10th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow A court in The Netherlands has dismissed a fraud claim for more than $800 million by Andrei Melnichenko against Alexander Mashkevich and the two other Kazakh owners of International Mineral Resources for lack of evidence. The 11-page judgement was issued by the District Court of Amsterdam on June 25. Three judges, […]

by John Helmer - Tuesday, July 8th, 2014
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