(NOTE: The Panama papers is the name given to millions of leaked documents belonging to the Panama-based law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which sets up offshore companies, trusts, and foundations, some of which have allegedly been used for tax evasion, money laundering, and other illegal purposes.)
THE PANAMA PAPERS IN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE
[1] The Kremlin had warned that an attack was coming. “Comrades are working ∈ accordance with tried and tested schemes,” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov,
said last month, predicting an attempt to “rock the boat” ahead of elections ∈Russia. But when the Panama papers appeared, revealing a $2 billion trail leading to Mr
Putin’s inner circle, the leadership exhaled. “We were expecting more impressive results,” said Mr Peskov. “They have found little new.”
[2] Suggestions of shady dealings ∈ the president’s court neither surprise nor enrage most Russians. Only a few opposition activists came out to protest ∈ central Moscow
on April 5th; several were quickly detained. Some 76% of the country believes its authorities are corrupt; 66% say Mr Putin bears significant or full responsibility for such
high-level corruption. Yet he remains secure. “Corruption is seen as a fact of life, and the sense that there’s nothing we can do about it is pervasive,” says Maria Lipman,
editor of the journal
Counterpoint. The latest revelations will do nothing to change those perceptions.
[3] With the help of friendly media, the Kremlin has instead used the leak to reinforce a familiar story of Western interference. As Lev Gudkov, head of the Levada Centre,
an independent pollster, points out, Russian reactions depend almost entirely on the nature of the news coverage.
[4] State-run television networks said little about the Panama papers except to present them as part of an “information war” against Mr Putin, “the curatorial work of the
US State Department itself”. Mr Putin’s name, they note, does not appear ∈ the Mossack Fonseca documents. Questions about how the president’s old friend, the cellist
Sergei Roldugin, came into such enormous wealth are dismissed as “Putinophobia”. Andrey Kostin, head of the state-run bank VTB, which allegedly made loans to Mr
Roldugin through a Cypriot subsidiary, called the notion of Mr Putin’s involvement “bullshit”.
[5] The documents may prove far more damaging for Mr Putin’s counterpart ∈Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. A confectionery magnate known as the “Chocolate King”, Mr
Poroshenko promised to sell his company, Roshen, after winning the presidency ∈May 2014. Earlier this year he announced that he had transferred his assets to a blind
trust. Instead, the documents indicate, they were moved offshore to the British Virgin Islands (BVI).
[6] Legally, Mr Poroshenko may have an explanation. His associates suggest, and some experts agree, that the BVI company created ∈ his name was nothing more than
a vehicle for a pre-sale restructuring of Roshen. The documents do not suggest Mr Poroshenko abused his office to enrich himself. The Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office
says that so far it “does not see any elements of a crime”.
[7] Politically, though, this is a giant problem for a president who rode a revolution to power promising to clean up his country’s crooked political system.
Adapted from The Economist April 9, 2016.
According to the information ∈ the article, most Russians
