The published “Panama archive” revealed offshore companies of Russian officials and friends of Vladimir Putin. However, state media chose to talk not about them, but about the companies of Lionel Messi and Petro Poroshenko

Photo: Oleg Yakovlev / RBC

Leak scale

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), together with a number of world media outlets, including the Russian Novaya Gazeta, published documents from the so-called Panama Archives on April 3. The archive is named Panamanian after the place of registration of the Mossack Fonseca company, the leak from which formed the basis of the investigation. This company, ICIJ claims, is engaged in the creation of shell companies and corporate structures to hide the ultimate beneficiaries of assets.

In total, the archive contains more than 11.5 million documents, which, according to the authors of the investigation, reveal the scale of the “shadow economy” with the participation of the world’s leading politicians, businessmen and celebrities. In the archive, in particular, data was found on offshore companies and foreign companies of 12 Russian officials or members of their families, as well as on companies whose beneficiaries are close friends of Vladimir Putin.

The journalists' investigations include the names of Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukaev, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, former deputy manager of presidential affairs Ivan Malyushin, and Deputy Mayor of Moscow Maxim Liksutov. In addition, the articles allege that people “close to” Russian President Vladimir Putin—in particular, cellist Sergei Roldugin and the main owner of Rossiya Bank, Yuri Kovalchuk— through offshore companies . transferred at least $2 billion

The Center for the Study of Corruption and Organized Crime and Novaya Gazeta published a separate investigation dedicated to Sergei Roldugin - it says that the cellist was involved in a secret operation to gain control of the Russian truck manufacturer KamAZ, and was also one of the shareholders Vi, the largest advertising seller on Russian TV.

Despite the scale of the leak, Russian state and pro-state media speak very cautiously on the topic of the “Panama Archives,” especially as it relates to Russian officials and businessmen. Or they don’t speak out at all.

Video: RBC Video Channel

Agency reaction

The state agency RIA Novosti (part of MIA Rossiya Segodnya), which owns one of the most visited sites on the Runet, made do with a few short news stories about the publication of the archive. In its first note, entitled “German media writes about the alleged involvement of world leaders in offshore schemes,” the agency only reported the fact that the investigation had been published in the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung (it was the one that first became acquainted with the Mossack Fonseca documents) and ICIJ.

The news says that the investigation materials include the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the King of Saudi Arabia Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the late father of British Prime Minister David Cameron and “a number of people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin” . The names of these individuals or other Russian officials are not mentioned, nor are the offshore companies and companies associated with them mentioned. At the same time, RIA emphasized that “the authenticity of the documents has not been officially confirmed by anyone, moreover, the Mossack Fonseca company itself stated that it refuses to certify their authenticity.” Two other news reports describe the reaction of the Panamanian authorities and Mossack Fonseca itself .

Another government agency, TASS , reported in more detail on investigations based on the Panamanian company's archive. At the same time, speaking about the Russian persons involved in the investigation, TASS , like RIA, only mentioned that “the publications contain materials about the operations of a number of Russian legal entities and individuals,” which “may relate to individuals from the circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin.” At the same time, the agency spoke in a separate detailed article about the offshore of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko , who transferred the assets of his confectionery corporation Roshen to a Panamanian company, thereby saving “millions of dollars in taxes that he would otherwise have to pay in Ukraine.” The agency also reported that the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) will not investigate this situation .

In addition, TASS said that are mentioned in the archive the names of UEFA head Michel Platini and Barcelona striker Lionel Messi . The agency is also continuing to monitor how international leaders react to the leak, such as that Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaigsson may resign or that French President Francois Hollande has vowed to launch investigations into the leaked documents.

Both agencies ignored the investigation about Putin’s friend Sergei Roldugin - his name in connection with the ICIJ and OCCRP investigation is mentioned only on the RIA website, but only in the digest of the Russian press (a brief announcement of the article in Vedomosti). RBC was monitoring materials on websites and in closed agency feeds as of 13:00.

The private agency Interfax on the morning of April 4 spoke in detail about the offshore companies of Petro Poroshenko, mentioning that the investigation also included “individuals who, according to the publication (Suddeutsche Zeitung), maintain friendly relations with the President of Russia.” At 11:00, the message “Roldugin’s structures owned an option for shares in KamAZ and AvtoVAZ” appeared in the Interfax feed, and at 13:24 an article about the cellist was published and on the website under the heading “Panama Archive” he talked about Roldugin’s role in the history of KamAZ and AvtoVAZ . " Now all materials dedicated to the Mossack Fonseca archive are combined on the website into the “Panamagate” story .

Ethereal response

Of the largest state and pro-state television channels, as of 14:00 on April 4, they talked about the investigation on the Internet resources of REN TV (part of the National Media Group, affiliated with the structures of Rossiya Bank) and VGTRK (state holding company). REN TV devoted several news on its website to Poroshenko’s offshores (“Poroshenko not only did not sell Roshen, but also deprived the country of taxes from his large business,” one of the messages notes ), as well as the reaction of Edward Snowden, who called the Panama Papers investigation the largest leak in history of journalism. VGTRK's main news site, Vesti.ru, focused on the names of Messi and Platini in connection with the leak.

A search on the websites of Channel One (a controlling stake owned by government agencies) and NTV (part of Gazprom-M Media, which is owned by Gazprombank) as of 2 p.m. did not show any results related to the Panama Archives. TV news releases broadcast on these two channels, as a rule, are immediately posted on the site, and a search on the site allows you to determine whether certain stories were mentioned on air or not.

The announcements of the morning news broadcasts of Rossiya-1 (part of VGTRK), Channel One, NTV and REN TV do not mention the Panama Archive scandal.

The website of the LifeNews TV channel (the TV channel is part of Aram Gabrelyanov’s News Media holding) also only talked about publications related to Poroshenko. LifeNews noted that the sale of Roshen was one of Petro Poroshenko’s election promises. “Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has still not transferred his Roshen assets to a trust,” the channel’s website says. “Instead, to avoid paying taxes on the possible sale of the confectionery company, he created three offshore companies.”

The English-language television channel RT (formerly called Russia Today, was created in 2005 to cover the Kremlin’s position abroad) published two articles on its website devoted to materials on the “Panama archives.” One talks about the publication of an investigation in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and the other talks about the reaction of the British media. “Sections of British society have criticized their media organizations for ignoring the fact that Prime Minister David Cameron’s father was named in a massive document leak alleging tax evasion,” the RT article said . At the same time, the article notes that the British media chose to focus on the scandal associated with Vladimir Putin’s friends and Russian officials.

On the afternoon of April 4, blogger Ilya Varlamov published on his website a graph of mentions of the investigation about Panamanian offshore companies in various Russian media. It also follows from his schedule that as of 13:00 the investigation about the “Panama Archives” was not mentioned at all in Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda and on the Lenta.ru website.

State media did not notice the investigation into the offshore companies of Putin's friends