By John Helmer in Moscow

A hitherto unknown Russian, believed to have intelligence connexions in Africa, has made contact with the Guinean government in a bid to save the Russian bauxite and alumina concessions in the country. The move, orchestrated in Paris this month, is the first indication to date of French moves afoot to intervene for regime change in the west African republic of Guinea — with methods and motives associated with the infamous murder of Congolese Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, in January 1961. Then, Belgian officials, backed by the CIA and a White House assasination order, did the deed, claiming justification from Soviet support of the popular nationalist figure. This time round, the Russian interests are causing a switch in sentiment.

Victor Alexeyevich Boyarkin (literally translated into English, the name means “belonging to the boyar”) was in Paris a few days ago, according to local sources, where he was introduced to Guinean Government officials as a close associate of Oleg Deripaska (see boyar figure to left), the chief executive and controlling shareholder of United Company Rusal. Boyarkin has an office and secretary at Rusal headquarters in Moscow, and company sources confirm that he heads a department there. During Deripaska’s visit to Paris to meet with French banks a few days ago, Boyarkin was seen with him, and was introduced as one of the company’s top troubleshooters.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

The new Economy and Energy Minister of Bulgaria, Traycho Traykov, has issued a warning to Moscow that if Russia intends to build a new cross-Turkey crude oil pipeline, running from Samsun on the Black Sea, to Ceyhan, on the Aegean, that will mean the cancellation of the long planned Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline, crossing Bulgaria and Greece.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

It was ten years ago, almost to the day, that a lawyer from Philadelphia named Bruce Marks had a very smart idea.

If you are too small and weak, physically or legally, to recover money you unwisely entrusted to a big Russian crook, Marks recommended going to your nearest federal US District Court; and get the judge there to convict the bad guy of something that’s the crime of racketeering in the US, but regular biznes in Russia. And so, civil claims were born out of the US Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The first trial run by Marks was a 1999 lawsuit in New Jersey by Vyacheslav Bresht against a bunch of US investors, who had bought a rip-off scheme for the Russian titanium producer, Avisma-VSMPO. Rather than go to court and face disclosure of what they had done, they paid up.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Billy Bunter was a fictional schoolboy character well-known to British and colonial schoolboys of my generation. Like most of us, his eyes were bigger than his stomach. Unlike many, by the age of ten Bunter had grasped the concept of leverage — to feed himself he was always borrowing against the legendary postal order that was in the mail from his Pater. To assist in his cons, Billy was also a gifted ventriloquist, making voices appear to come from everywhere but himself. This was always amusing even though — maybe especially because — Bunter was usually caught out, and either caned by his school masters, or kicked by his classmates. (You can have a Russian empire if naughty boys get away with their japes, but not a British one.)
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, October 26th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

It’s either a comedy starring Pinocchio, or a tragedy ending in Seppuku.

According to Section 1 of Sovcomflot’s corporate code of governance — ratified by the company board in 2007, and posted on the company website — one of the principles is “prompt disclosure of complete and reliable information about the Company enabling informed decision-making by the shareholders and investors of the Company”. Another of the provisions in this section obliges company officeholders to ensure “compliance with ethical standards of business conduct.” By these standards, what is to be made of the public clash in a London courtroom last week over evidence of a relatively paltry sum of one million dollars that hasn’t managed to be identified in Sovcomflot’s accounts yet?
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, October 26th, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

It’s not so surprising that religion tends to be humourless. Making people accept the impossible usually requires threats, not jokes.

There is no record that Jesus Christ ever laughed out loud. His idea of humour was sarcasm, and puns he lifted from fishermen and carpenters. But for overdoing seriousness, the early eastern patriarch, St Cyril of Alexandria (378-444 AD), takes the cake. He’s the fellow who sets the record for heaping more anathemas on a single target than anyone in Christian history.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Friday, October 23rd, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

In Russia it is traditional for the tsar to invite the culpable to assist him in finding and punishing the culprits; or to bargain for scapegoats.

On Thursday last, October 15, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told the regular weekly session of government ministers that he has ordered the Prosecutor General to investigate corruption in the state bureaucracy.

On Wednesday of this week, October 21, President Dmitry Medvedev invited a group of Russia’s oligarchs and figures of the Russian Union of Entrepreneurs and Industrialists to give him their thoughts on government action to deal with the economic crisis.
(more…)

by John Helmer - Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Gazprom, Russia’s leading company, has told Fairplay that reports that Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin agreed this week with the Turkish government to reroute the South Stream gas pipeline on to Turkish territory do not mean that Gazprom has decided to lay a land segment of the pipeline in Turkey, and bypass Bulgaria altogether (for the route until this week, see map).
(more…)

by John Helmer - Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
No Comments »

By John Helmer in Moscow

Unprecedented disclosure of the financial intimacies of world tanker leader, state-owned Sovcomflot, continues in the UK High Court in London as Igor Borisenko, the former chief financial officer and deputy CEO of Sovcomflot, returns to the witness stand today and tomorrow.

Borisenko has told the judge that, although he was in charge of Sovcomflot’s finances, he could not remember offers of sale and lease-back transactions with Sovcomflot vessels from Clarksons, Boeing Capital, and other sources, at a time when Sovcomflot’s new CEO, Dmitry Skarga, was struggling to repay a Soviet-era loan debt of $500 million . “Are you saying that there was no discussion at all around this time, that you are aware of, about whether sale and lease-back might be a source of finance?” asked Justice Andrew Smith. “I do not remember, my Lord, that this matter was discussed with me.”
(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, October 19th, 2009
No Comments »

(more…)

by John Helmer - Monday, October 19th, 2009
No Comments »