By John Helmer, Moscow

Last week, on October 7, United Company Rusal – the state aluminium monoply managed by Oleg Deripaska (right) — was due in the Nigerian High Court at Abuja to start trial on the claim by a Nigerian-American group, BFIG, for the handover of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (Alscon). BFIG has been in the Nigerian courts since a ruling by a US federal judge eight years ago that the jurisdiction for its claims is in Nigeria, not in the US. In July of last year Nigeria’s highest court ruled that the government’s Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) had unlawfully privatized the smelter in Rusal’s favour, rigging the share sale and the price corruptly for Rusal’s benefit.

The American government had already agreed. A US Embassy cable from Abuja, dated August 2004 and published by Wikileaks in 2011, told the State Department the Nigerian government’s action towards Rusal had reflected “a lack of transparency in the bidding process, and perhaps some corruption as well.” BFIG’s lawsuit claims $2.8 billion from Rusal in lost or unrealized profits, damages, and costs.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 15th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Fibber McGee was one of the first situation comedy serials on American radio; from 1935 to 1959, it was also one of the longest running. The situation joke was that Fibber would tell tall tales which his wife Molly would expose. Fibber (left image-1) stood (and fell) for hare-brained schemes; Molly, his wife on stage and off (left image-2), stood for commonsense.

Evraz is one of Russia’s largest steel and mining companies employing about 110,000 people worldwide. In Russia the group operates three steelmills in two regions; ten coalmines in two other regions, five iron-ore mines, and two vanadium refineries near Moscow. It is controlled by Roman Abramovich (right image-1), whose way of telling tales managed to persuade the UK High Court judge Dame Elizabeth Gloster, in the well-known case brought by the late Boris Berezovsky. But no Molly, Gloster. She decided that to protect her judgement from the Court of Appeal, she believed one of the two claimants rather than dismissing both of them for lying their heads off. A good part of Russia was wise to what was true, what was false. Gloster did something else. “I bethcha!”, one of Molly’s famous lines, turned out to be Gloster’s in the end. Or, as the Greek character used to refer to their names in the radio show, it was a case of “Fizzer and Kewpie”.
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 14th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

As a presidential assistant and a first deputy prime minister for many years, Igor Sechin grew accustomed to the illusion to which high officials in all states are prone – that the fault in efficient administration lies in the weakness of command-and-control systems, sociologically speaking. Or to speak psychologically of humankind, the reluctance of subordinates to do what they are told. As a government official Sechin tried to compensate for these sociological and psychological faults with the Russian combination of force and fear known as “administrative measures”. He’s also tried the old standby, money.

Now that he’s in charge of Rosneft, the publicly listed oil and gas company, Sechin is simultaneously accountable to the market and in the number-2 spot in Russian administration where only one accountability counts. Between the two, between the differently coloured telephones the chief executive can pick up on his desk, the rules aren’t quite the same. Indeed, paradoxical as this may seem to him, Sechin’s rules can be against the law. For a candidate to become the prime minister or more in Russia one day, such little paradoxes can have large and instructive consequences. Take, for example, the Rosneft business of putting fuel into ships’ tanks to drive their engines.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 9th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

A court in Lagos, Nigeria, today dismissed all charges of arms smuggling and illegal entry for the crew of the Russian security tender, Myre Seadiver. Seven crewmen, who have remained on bail at the Russian Embassy in Lagos since the last hearing in July, will be free to leave Nigeria and return home, after the court order is issued tomorrow. The Myre Seadiver and its original 15-man crew were arrested almost a year ago, on October 20, in the Lagos port roads, as the vessel prepared to leave after a month’s refuelling and repairs, and a change of crew. That story can be read here.
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by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 8th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

General Vo Nguyen Giap has died in Hanoi, aged 102.

There has been no general of his quality and achievement in modern times. He defeated the French and the Americans, and in two separate wars drove them as decisively out of Vietnam as Kutuzov drove Napoleon out of Russia. Giap, his army and people withstood more conventional bomb weight than was dropped on Germany, Italy and Japan, combined, during World War II. They survived the most massive chemical warfare campaign ever inflicted on earth – that’s the American one. They emerged victors from explosive force “100 times the combined impact of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.”
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by John Helmer - Monday, October 7th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

Victor Pinchuk (right top) is the Ukrainian oligarch who last month hosted Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and other political wannabes or has-beens, to promote himself as the champion of Ukrainian independence. This week he stands in the UK High Court charged by two other Ukrainian oligarchs with bribery, corruption, theft of state assets, election-rigging, racketeering, extortion, embezzlement, fraud, conspiracy, and perjury, compounded by nepotism and sex with the only child of ex-President Leonid Kuchma (left). Holy Moly!

Russia is the frying pan from which the Ukraine is now trying to escape, Pinchuk and his celebrity guests agreed last month. But the fire into which Pinchuk is now committing his country is so flaming hot, it’s a wonder men with impulse-control problems like Clinton and Strauss-Kahn would wish publicly to endorse it, let alone a presidential candidate like Hillary Clinton trying to raise money for her race to succeed Barack Obama. For campaign reasons the two Clintons have been dissociating themselves from Kuchma’s record for years. But they have been taking Pinchuk’s money, and he is insisting it’s payback time.
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by John Helmer - Thursday, October 3rd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

All the punditry since September 8, when Alexei Navalny won 27% of the Moscow mayoral vote, with a 32% turnout, has missed three unusual poll indicators measured by the Levada Centre. The first is that Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s approval rating has been in steady decline for a year, but it is now at an all-time low — far lower than Medvedev suffered as president during the economic downturn of 2008-2009. The downward trend line may be accelerating for Medvedev. By contrast, the second indicator shows that President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating for the past two years is stable despite the economic downturn, and may now be rising.

The third indicator is the remarkable one. This shows that the correlation between the President’s and Prime Minister’s ratings is evaporating, and the gap between them is now growing. Public approval gains for Putin but dwindles for Medvedev.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 2nd, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

The ancients were pretty sure that when Zeus tossed his lightning and thunder bolts, he wasn’t well-intentioned, let alone fair-minded. It’s that way too in Russia when electricity gets distributed between the big shots and ordinary folk. The ancients were also sure Zeus could be bought off, but obviously not by those who couldn’t afford the temple offerings.

Last month, when Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, followed by President Vladimir Putin, and then Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev announced that they are going to freeze Russian power tariffs for next year, in effect distributing electricity at a discount to big shots, but keeping in place the 12% increase in the tariff for ordinary citizens, implemented on July 1, they were rewarding those in a position to pay off.
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by John Helmer - Monday, September 30th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If the US Government and Congress believe they have the right to impose sanctions on Russian individuals and companies for conduct that is legal in Russian and international law, what would happen if the boot were on the other foot – if the Russian Government imposed sanctions on US individuals and corporations for violating Russian law?

The question arises often, very often. Two weeks ago, for instance, a group of US Senators told the US Treasury that VTB, Vnesheconombank and Gazprombank should be penalized for violating “international sanctions by enabling Syria to pay for imports and receive funds for exports. This assistance eases much of the financial burden on the Assad regime, allowing it to continue military purchases and pay the soldiers that sustain the war in Syria.” For background on Russia’s legal position toward the Syrian conflict, read this.
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by John Helmer - Sunday, September 29th, 2013
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By John Helmer, Moscow

If the common Russian opinion of who runs the country matches the evidence of who really runs Russia, that’s a reliable test of a democratic culture.

There’s a catch. If just one man and a handful of his trusties run the country, and noone else, not even the very rich or very honest, can improve on their reputation for trust, capability, or popularity, then this must be a democracy without competition. Compared to democracies like the United Kingdom, United States, Italy, or France, where those who run the country are untrusted, incapable, and unpopular, and where the power elite buys election results, respectability, lordships, freedom from taxation, and immunity from prosecution, Russia must be a model of something unusual in politics.
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by John Helmer - Wednesday, September 25th, 2013
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