By John Helmer, Moscow Last week, the first week in the life of Russia’s EN+ Group on the London Stock Exchange, Oleg Deripaska (lead images), control shareholder and chief executive, took $500 million in cash for himself, then triggered a $112 million loss for the other shareholders led by the Russian state bank, VTB.   […]

by Editor - Sunday, November 12th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Stealing diamonds is a common crime. Stealing diamond mines is not unheard of, particularly  in Africa. But the Grib diamond mine in the Arkhangelsk region of Russia is the only diamond mine to have been stolen four times in just twenty years. This is a record in the history of the […]

by Editor - Monday, November 6th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Roman Abramovich (lead image) is the leading shareholder of the Russian steel, iron-ore and coal mining group called Evraz. Among Russia’s leading steel groups, it ranks second in output of crude steel; fourth in market value. It is the leader in indebtedness. By international measures, Evraz also leads its Russian peers […]

by Editor - Tuesday, October 17th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow When you are a Russian oligarch with a 20-year record of settling out of court with friends, partners and investors accusing you of deceit; when you have a 7-year record of failing to sustain your share value in a genuine stock market, what do you do next? You announce to a […]

by Editor - Monday, October 9th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Oleg Deripaska (lead image, left) is famous for snatching other people’s money and legging it. The records of the High Court in London show what he did to Mikhail Chernoy (Cherney), Boris Berezovsky, and Roman Abramovich. Chernoy recovered $200 million in 2012;  click to open.  Only two people have ever taken […]

by Editor - Sunday, September 24th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow The collapse of Otkritie Bank last month is the largest Russian bank failure since the collapse of National Bank Trust in December 2014.  The Central Bank rescue of Trust made inevitable the much more costly bailout of Otrkitie, announced a fortnight ago on August 29,   charges Ilya Yurov, the former […]

by Editor - Monday, September 11th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Igor Zyuzin (lead image) is the first Russian oligarch to face prosecution for polluting the air around his factories. The announcement of criminal charges last week comes as Chelyabinsk regional and city officials escalate a war against lobbying by well-known names around President Vladimir Putin to save Mechel, Zyuzin’s coal and […]

by Editor - Thursday, July 20th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow Never in the field of American conflict with Russia has so much wool pulled over the eyes been owed to so few sheep.  That was during the losing presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Now, in the investigations of President Donald Trump and his family, it’s a case of so many sheep […]

by Editor - Monday, July 17th, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow When it happened eight months ago, the arrest of little known public works contractor Sergei Vladimirovich Maslov (lead image, right) made a sensational bang. The outcome, eight months later, is a silent ringing one; that’s ringing as in Russian telephone justice.   At his palatial home at Arkhangelskoye, outside Moscow, on […]

by Editor - Friday, June 23rd, 2017
No Comments »

By John Helmer, Moscow It used to be fashionable for European tourists of high class, especially the ladies with their menfolk, to visit wars and enjoy the display of artillery at night; the clash of infantry and cavalry on the battlefield; and the morgues where the casualties were displayed in naked and dismembered heaps afterwards. […]

by Editor - Wednesday, May 24th, 2017
No Comments »