The state is critical

Why in the Kremlin they so nervously reacted to the film by the BBC of the secret wealth of Putin? There is nothing in it that we would not know before, and even less than what we already know.

The assessment of Vladimir Putin’s personal state of $ 40 billion was first published by the German Welt newspaper in November 2007 in an interview with political scientist Stanislav Belkovsky, who called Putin's well -known fraction of Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom (respectively, 37 and 4.5 percent) and simply summarized the market value of shares. (Subsequently, it turned out that this figure is close to the assessment of the CIA in the same year, which, however, no one saw.)

In January 2009, Gennady Timchenko discovered in London a lawsuit for slander for the British magazine Economist, who wrote that his company was using special preferences thanks to Timchenko’s personal friendship with Putin. The amount of reputational damage declared by the plaintiff was not announced. The editors could not get evidence of this statement, and in July the parties concluded a settlement agreement - a message appeared on the pages of the magazine: the parties that read:

We accept the assurances of Gunvor that neither Vladimir Putin, nor anyone else from the Russian high-ranking politicians owns any Gunvor share. We regret if a different impression arose.

In December 2010, WikiLeaks laid out American diplomatic dispatches to open access, from which it appears that back in November 2008, the US government had information that Gennady Timchenko Gunvor is one of the main sources of Putin’s personal enrichment. With reference to Alexei Navalny, Ambassador John Bayerly reports to Washington that Gunvor controls up to 50 percent of the total oil exports of Russia, but the company is opaque and it is impossible to install beneficiaries.

In the cipherogram , signed by Secretary of State Condolizes Rice (December 2007), it is about the fact that Putin is nervous due to the expiration of his second presidential term and selects the successor who would provide him with immunity and did not touch his condition. Further, according to the informant, whose name WikiLeaks does not disclose, it is said that Sergei Ivanov is considered an unsuccessful candidate, a figure is required.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov then called the leak "pure insinuations" and "complete nonsense". He doubted, firstly, in the authenticity of documents, and secondly, in reality the diplomats signed them, and in case they are still real (after all, it is difficult to doubt the existence of the condolis of Rice or Bayerly Ambassador), he called them non-professional, gathering, like the yellow press, unverified rumors.

The president commented on this information after two and a half months, when at a large press conference (his last before leaving the president’s post), the Reuters correspondent asked him a question on this topic. Putin’s answer was widely cited by the Western press:

As for various rumors about the monetary condition, I watched some papers on this subject: just a chatter that has nothing to discuss, just nonsense. Everyone was picked up from the nose and smeared them on their pieces of paper. That's how I relate to this.

In March 2011, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Milov and Vladimir Ryzhkov, the Putin. Corruption report , containing data on the “crown-kapitalism” in Russia, as the system of distribution of official contracts to close friends of the elected policy in America, presented the Putin. Corruption.

In the report, by the way, there was information about the Olympia yacht, which is described in the British film, and about the presidential palaces, and Putin’s exorbitantly expensive watches, which he could not purchase for salaries. (In December 2014, the president said that he did not even know what his salary was.) Data on Putin’s state was not in the report.

Timchenko again complained to the court, this time Zamoskvoretsky, who partially satisfied his lawsuit and demanded that the defendants refute the statement that Timchenko was Putin’s old friend and that Putin was the final beneficiary of his business.

Fearing the Sutyazhnya of Timchenko, the British publisher refused to publish the book of the famous American researcher Karen Davishi "Putin's Kleptocracy." In an angry reciprocal message, she called this decision "proactive burning." The book was published in the American publishing house.

In April 2012, Belkovsky called British journalist Mave McClenakhan a much higher figure - Putin, according to him, was no longer $ 40, but $ 70 billion. And the initiator of the “Magnitsky Law” Bill Brighter in February last year in an interview with CNN's television company appreciated Putin’s personal wealth of 200 billion.

Honestly, at the sight of such amounts, Glafira Firsovna is remembered from Ostrovsky’s play “The Last Sacrifice”, which was expressed as follows:

Well, this is my account, I think all millions: I have more than a thousand, then a million. How much money is there in a million, I myself do not know, but I say so, because this word has fallen into fashion.

Meanwhile, in Washington, all this was shook on the mustache. In March 2014, the US Department of Finance published a sanctions list of legal entities and individuals who maintain close ties with the President of Russia. About Gunvor about Gunvor said :

Putin invested funds in Gunvor and may have access to his finances.

Timchenko sold his share in Gunvor on the eve of the entry into force. Gunvor director, on corporate relations, Seth Thomas Petras rushed to Washington in order to convince government officials to remove sanctions from the company, butdid not achieve anything. An employee of the American Ministry of Finance, who wished to remain an unknown, said The New York Times: "We are still sure that information about Putin and Gunvor relations is true." And in November 2014, the Federal Prosecutor for the Eastern District of the state of New York began an investigation on charges of laundering money against Gennady Timchenko.

So, there is no sensation in the BBC film. Why were they so alarmed surrounded by the Russian president? Sergei Lavrov rushed to call John Kerry, expressing "indignation with far -fetched and shameless accusations against the leadership of Russia." Dmitry Peskov called these accusations the “ denigrating campaign ”, Sergey Ivanov - “ Akhineya and Galicia ”, and Senator Konstantin Kosachev “ arrogant and stupid shocking of air ”.

Moscow dignitaries are close to panic. The reason, of course, is that the statement of the official of the Ministry of Finance Adam Shubin, who has not yet been approved by the Senate, supported the White House. After all, the president’s spokesman could somehow dodge, answer evasively, to name Shubin’s statement with his personal opinion. But he said that "the assessment of the Ministry of Finance best reflects the eyes of the administration." This is a formidable signal. It means the presence of an evidence base. What the Americans will do with her is a separate question. But demagogy and phraseology from the arsenal of the Soviet agitprop will definitely not help here.

The problem of kleptocrates is that he falls into a vicious circle: he needs money to ensure security, and security - to maintain money.