by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 30th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Vladimir Lenin was one day asked about the ethics of a party member who was marrying an heiress. The party wasn’t a “finishing school”, Lenin said, but the money would come in handy, no matter how the lady in question, or her parents, acquired it. “A scoundrel,” Lenin recommended, “may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.”

This wasn’t the same thing as the adaptations attributed later to more than one US President regarding more than one foreign political leader. “He may be a sonofabitch (bastard, crook),” each of the presidents is reported to have said, “but he’s our sonofabitch (ditto).”
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 29th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Diamonds are a bit like champagne: even in the worst of times, demand can grow among consumers, and for producers, sales revenues and profits too.

Good news isn’t usually the honey which attracts this particular bear; and Alrosa has been producing plenty of it. Released early this month, the company’s financial report for 2013 and operational report for the first quarter of 2014 show that production of rough stones is up, with higher grades for each tonne of ore and higher volumes of ore out of the company’s newest mines. Rough diamond prices are rising, so sales revenues grew at 11% last year, and are forecast to accelerate to 16% this year. Compared to its major global rivals, Alrosa has been able to maintain its output at the minehead, while the others – De Beers, Rio Tinto — have retreated, and BHP Billiton has left the business altogether.
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by John Helmer - Monday, April 28th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Eastern Ukrainians are convinced that the Kremlin will serve their interests best in the current tussle over constitutional rights, law and order, if President Vladimir Putin keeps Russian forces on the Russian side of the frontier. This view isn’t changing as partition of the country hardens, and violence in the east and south becomes worse.

The interpretation a US Government-funded polling operation draws from this is quite different from the conclusions the Ukrainians themselves are drawing. That’s because there are questions the US poll didn’t ask, and Ukrainian pollsters did. Publication of the US Government polling also reveals there were Ukrainian answers in March which Washington has omitted to report in April.
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by John Helmer - Friday, April 25th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Multibillion dollar contracts between GlencoreXstrata and United Company Rusal, signed for trading of aluminium and alumina late in 2011, appear to have unravelled in a London arbitration court. However, because the arbitration has been conducted behind closed doors, Glencore is refusing to confirm or deny that the company is facing liability for a retrospective veto of their six-year $47 billion undertaking.

Glencore’s spokesman, Charles Watenphul for media and Paul Smith for investor relations, will not acknowledge that a ruling by the London Court of International Arbitration [LCIA] has upheld a veto of its Rusal contracts by Victor Vekselberg, the former chairman of the Rusal board and by SUAL Partners, a combination of Vekselberg and Len Blavatnik which holds an 8.75% shareholding in Rusal. The two Glencore spokesmen are also refusing to confirm or deny fresh evidence that Glencore has already paid SUAL Partners $80 million as their share of claims before the LCIA partially settled in January.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The US Navy has announced that it has called back its frigate, USS Taylor, from the Souda Bay repair dock in Crete, and ordered her into the Black Sea from April 22. The Navy announcement says the mission is a routine one “consistent with the Montreux Convention and International Law. Taylor’s mission is to reassure NATO allies of the U.S. Navy’s commitment to strengthen and improve interoperability while working toward mutual goals in the region.”
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Victor Pinchuk is either the greatest of patriots among the oligarchs of eastern Ukraine for having promoted an alliance with the European Union and the US presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton. Or else he’s made a colossal miscalculation, sacrificing his Interpipe steel combine for no market benefit, not even relief for debts of more than $1.3 billion.

He’s not the only eastern Ukrainian oligarch to suffer from the transition government’s agreements with Brussels and Washington last month. The European Union’s Ukrainian trade assistance programme, released on March 11, refused to extend benefits to the major mining and metals businesses to the east of Kiev; for the details, click here. Likewise, the programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which followed on March 27, has introduced devaluation of the hryvnia, gas and electricity price increases to “full cost recovery”, a hike in state rail tariffs, and a stop to rigged state procurement for steel products: these measures all inflate the cost line of the oligarch balance-sheets at the same time as closure of the Russian market and lack of alternative markets have already depressed their revenue line.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

On Thursday President Vladimir Putin described NATO missile batteries aimed at Russia’s Black Sea coastline as threatening the nuclear defences of southwestern Russia. It was the first time the president or Russian defence officials have put Crimea into Russian strategic survival doctrine. US Navy deployment in the Black Sea of ships armed with Aegis missiles is one of the concrete threats Putin was referring to. This has made the current Black Sea cruise of the USS Donald Cook, an Aegis-armed destroyer, of special importance. It is the reason a Russian military aircraft buzzed the Cook as it steamed towards Constanta port, in Romania.

It is also the reason why, as Putin was speaking in Moscow, the Cook pulled away from the Constanta dock, setting a course to the southeast from Constanta towards Georgia and Turkey, and not a northward course towards Odessa. In that Ukrainian port, public demonstrations against a port call by the Cook have been under way for several days.
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by John Helmer - Monday, April 21st, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The Evraz group, controlled by Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, is listed on the main board of the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It is also the second most indebted steelmaker in Russia, with a current debt of about $6.5 billion, and a loss on its 2013 balance-sheet of $572 million.

This parlous condition is obliging Abramovich and Abramov to get rid of as many of their lossmaking steelmills as they can, and avoid defaulting on their bank loan covenants. Because the duo miscalculated when they paid premium prices for their foreign assets, the writedowns to the current value of their purchases are inflicting big numbers on the loss line of the Evraz financial reports, eliminating shareholder dividends, and cutting market capitalization. At the moment, the market values Evraz at £1.3 billion ($2.2 billion) – that’s to say, one-third of what Evraz owes its banks. The market capitalization has been dwindling steadily since February 2012 when it was £6.9 billion. Among Russian steelmakers only Igor Zyuzin, owner of the Mechel group, has generated more debt, and destroyed more asset value.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, April 17th, 2014
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The Easter holidays have come early for the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) User-Generated Content Hub (UGC) in London. That’s the BBC’s centre for expertise whose purpose is to make sure that published images, still and moving, soundtracks, and other documentary film material, are authentic, and mean what the Corporation says they mean in its broadcasts. The UGC was also off work a little more than a year ago, when in a series of broadcasts by Moscow correspondent Steven Rosenberg (lower left), the BBC produced false text, fabricated images, and invented, mashup soundtrack of the Pussy Riot group.

On that occasion – actually, seven months later, after this report exposed what had happened – the BBC opened an investigation, concluding that text had been “incorrect”; “misleading impression” had occurred; “errors” were made. “Any suggestion that the BBC fabricated or staged any footage is absolutely untrue,” the BBC correction declared. “We are taking steps to ensure the errors are not repeated.” Except during school midterms and on religious holidays.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, April 16th, 2014
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