By John Helmer, Moscow Dmitry Pumpyansky (lead image, left), the 53-year old oligarch who dominates the Russian steel pipes business, knows how to pay for protection. Last week the US Treasury listed him as an oligarch whose corruption record and closeness to the Kremlin may qualify him for sanctions, according to Section 241 of the […]

by Editor - Friday, February 2nd, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow As midnight tolled in Washington, DC, and January 29 slid into January 30, the deadline for the US Government to produce a report to the Congress listing Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin slipped by in the darkness. No dog barked.* Required by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act […]

by Editor - Monday, January 29th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow On January 10, Oleg Deripaska (lead image, front left), the Russian oligarch who controls the state aluminium monopoly Rusal and electricity producer EN+, ordered his personal lawyers, Bryan Cave, into the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan. There, court papers reveal that Deripaska is charging Paul Manafort (rear left) and […]

by Editor - Tuesday, January 16th, 2018
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By John Helmer, Moscow This isn’t news:  President Vladimir Putin (lead image, right) is running for re-election on March 18. According to the latest national polls, he is likely to win with a larger majority of a smaller turnout than in 2012. As Tiny Tim (left) almost said in Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol, God bless […]

by Editor - Thursday, December 14th, 2017
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  By John Helmer, Moscow Russia’s leading state banker German Gref (lead image, left) and members of the Russian intelligentsia have written to the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, announcing their judgement that Suleiman Kerimov (centre) is innocent of the indictment the French prosecutor has filed in Nice. This charges Kerimov with laundering  more than […]

by Editor - Monday, December 11th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow  The arrest and indictment of Suleiman Kerimov in Nice last week on charges of tax fraud and money laundering have begun loosening the tongues of international bankers and commodity trade financiers who have done business with Kerimov in the past, and who have been  guests at his Cap d’Antibes villa parties. […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 28th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Evasion of French taxes is the criminal case against Suleiman Kerimov (lead image, rear left), who was jailed in Nice on November 20; indicted two days later; then released on €5 million in bail, his passport confiscated and his freedom curtailed by French police surveillance which may last for years, before […]

by Editor - Sunday, November 26th, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow Sergei Frank, a former federal transport minister and chief executive of the state shipping company Sovcomflot since 2004, is unique among Russian state officials. He is the only one to have been adjudicated by a series of UK judges to have lied, been dishonest in evidence-gathering, and vindictive in his use […]

by Editor - Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow President Vladimir Putin’s campaign to repatriate Russian capital from offshore havens, and to force the well-known Russian oligarchs to return their cash and assets to Russia, took a leap forward on Monday evening in Nice, France. That is when French police arrested Suleiman Kerimov (lead image), and refused to accept that the […]

by Editor - Wednesday, November 22nd, 2017
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By John Helmer, Moscow The Russian state bank VTB has corroborated its role in managing a complicated set of loans, insider transfers and repurchase agreements for Oleg Deripaska’s aluminium and electricity holding, EN+, which issued global depositary receipts on the London Stock Exchange last week. Since the listing, the Russian group has lost $140 million […]

by Editor - Tuesday, November 14th, 2017
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