By John Helmer, Moscow Between buying his bank from Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2004 and losing it to the Central Bank of Russia at the end of December, 2014, Ilya Yurov, chairman of National Bank (NB) Trust, made a fortune. How much of it he has kept for himself, at the expense of his depositors, shareholders […]

by Editor - Monday, October 12th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow “I wish I had sent one more helicopter to get the hostages,” former US president Jimmy Carter said at one of his farewell appearances in Atlanta recently, “and we would’ve rescued them, and I would’ve been re-elected.” Compared to his predecessors and successors Carter was intellectually superior. He also didn’t suffer […]

by Editor - Thursday, October 8th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Samvel Karapetyan (lead image) had a fortune last week of $4.6 billion. This, according to profiles in Forbes Russia, he made all by himself from Russian property development. The dollar number puts Karapetyan at No. 26 on the ladder of fortunes in Russia, where he lives and works; number 1 in […]

by Editor - Monday, September 28th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Something funny happened to the clown in the laundry. When he went in, the pockets of his pants were empty. When he came out, they were overflowing with money. “What kind of washing detergent do you use here?” he asked. Not even under the circus big-top, with a troop of elephants […]

by Editor - Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Smelting aluminium is a dirty business, so it’s every smelterman’s dream to recuperate on a tropical island far from the Big Smoke. Denis Island, for example, three balmy degrees south of the Equator in the Indian Ocean. And so, once upon a recent time, Oleg Deripaska (lead image), control shareholder of […]

by Editor - Monday, September 21st, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Vladimir Yakunin, the recently replaced boss of Russian Railways, says President Vladimir Putin saved his bacon when he was fired the first time in June 2013, and then a second time a year ago. But last month, Yakunin has been telling his friends, it was Putin who made a pig’s breakfast […]

by Editor - Wednesday, September 9th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Cyprus Government investigators have opened an inquiry into ex-Senator Leonid Lebedev (lead image) for transfers into a hidden Cyprus trust of $150 million in cash allegedly stolen from the regional Russian electricity company TGK-2 and a related company, TKS. Investigations by Russian prosecutors and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), reported […]

by Editor - Monday, September 7th, 2015
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By John Helmer, Moscow Listeners to US Government radio and readers of the London papers are being told that Kaliningrad is a Russian dagger pointed at the soft underbelly of the NATO alliance in central Europe. According to NATO sources, the dagger must be reversed so that it threatens the Kremlin instead. Officials in the […]

by Editor - Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
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by Editor - Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015
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On August 24, 1991, Marshal Sergei Fyodorovich Akhromeyev committed suicide. He had returned from his holiday at Sochi responding to the attempted removal of Mikhail Gorbachev from power. According to the reports of the time, he hanged himself in his Kremlin office, leaving behind a note. One version of what it said was: “I cannot […]

by Editor - Sunday, August 23rd, 2015
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