The enemy miscalculated again

How official Russia reacted to the Panama scandal

Unlike other defendants in the offshore scandal, the Kremlin was seriously and was preparing in advance for the publication of Panama papers. The involuntary promoter of the project was the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, who reported on March 28 about the upcoming publication of the “Antiputine stuffing”. Peskov called the prepared materials "an undisguised ordered." “The task is to carry out an information attack, direct, concoct and introduce into the information agenda,” the presidential spokesman explained the situation. The “announcing” theses of Peskov and subsequently became the basis for official Russian reactions to the publication of a journalistic investigation based on the documents of the Panama Law Firm Mossack Fonseca.

April 4, after the publication of compromising evidence, Peskov repeated: the main goal of the investigators is Personally Vladimir Putin. “Although Putin has never appeared factologically and other leaders and other leaders are mentioned, it is obvious to us that the main goal of such stuffing was and is our president in the context of the parliamentary elections and in the long -term perspective of the presidential election, as well as political stability in our country,” Peskov said, thereby setting the field of interpretations for the state media. "The degree of Putinophobia has reached such a level that it is impossible to talk about Russia well, to talk about the successes of Russia, it is impossible to a priori." He added. The materials, according to Peskov, were published not only to shake the situation within the country, but also to distract the world community from Russia's success in Syria.

State news agencies not only replicated the words of Peskov, but also reinforced them with the conclusions of other commentators. So, for example, in a short interview with TASS, Deputy of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya, chairman of the Committee on Security and Countering Corruption, expanded and deepened the ideas of the first-person press secretary. “The number of information attacks addressed to the President of Russia and the unpretentiousness of false plots are like multiple injection of poison in the hope that at least some dose will work. There is no doubt that the objects of Russia are the object of Russia. ” “The fathers of color revolutions,” according to Yarovo, are not given rest “political stability in Russia and the trust of society to the president”. They understand that “do not have time to demoralize society and rock the situation for the elections,” so they will “part” with new doses of “poison”. But, Yarovaya reassured the journalists, “the goal of attacks has not been achieved: Russia continues to live and work, and the world still connects hope with our president and our country by an order of magnitude and security.”

“The goal of attacks has not been achieved-Russia continues to live and work, and the world still connects with our president and our country of hope of order and security”

The news agencies preferred not to report anything about the essence of the scandal, limiting themselves to such comments. At the same time, almost everyone reported that the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko turned out to be a defendant in history (for example, the only news that appeared on April 4 in the Interfax film). In the evening issue of news on Channel One on April 4, Peskov’s words were also reproduced and spoke about Poroshenko’s offshores. “Russia 24” focused on events in Iceland, where demonstrators in the squares demanded the resignation of the country's prime minister (it was also mentioned in “Panama papers”).

The next day, Peskov continued the fight against compromising evidence, saying: “The world media focused in completely inexplicable, and both printed and electronic, mainly in our country and our president. This is exactly what we meant when we talked about such Bacilla Putinophobia, which struck many in the Western community. ” He also added that he would not sue the authors of the investigation, calling the information that the offshore and his wife, the skater Tatyana Navka, had “slander”.

The result of the speeches of Russian officials was summed up by Vladimir Putin. On April 7, on the ONF media forum in St. Petersburg, he spoke about victories in Syria, the relics of the armed forces and independence of the Russian economy. And then he added: “Opponents are worried about the unity and cohesion of the Russian people. Attempts are made to swing from the inside and comb us with the way they want. The easiest way is to introduce some distrust within society, to configure some against others. ” The cellist Sergei Roldugin, according to Putin, “does not earn money, not billions,” and spends earned on the purchase of musical instruments that he brings to Russia.

In addition, the deputy of the Unoross Viktor Zvagelsky, who also found offshores in Panama, said that he would sue with the New Gazeta, which published materials regarding his companies. The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation said that “will check the media data about Russians who have companies and offshore accounts”, and a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation Artem Kiryanov appealed to the Federal Tax Service (Federal Tax Service) with a demand to check how the “Novaya Gazeta” is paying taxes.

Opinion

"Panama files were late for four years"

Questions: Irina Demchenko, London

Peter Pomerantsev is a British journalist and documentary director, author of the book “Nothing true and everything is possible” about the mechanisms of the work of Kremlin propaganda, told NT what consequences may have an ICIJ investigation for Russian society:

Data on Russia contained in Panama files is absolutely explosive. But for Russian society, they were late for four years. If this information appeared during mass protests of 2011-2012, when corruption was one of the key topics, the effect would be tremendous! They (the Kremlin) then managed to replace the theme of corruption in the public consciousness of the war.

Do you want to say that the investigation will be wasted?

It’s completely vain - no, the question of corruption of power and state apparatus and now remains one of the main on the agenda of the Russian opposition. But the public reaction to scandals of this kind is already different.

There is also such an opinion: in corruption everyone is involved, except Putin.

Uh, no, Russians are by no means stupid people. They perfectly understand that if the heads of state companies and officials steal, why not Putin do the same?

What then could impress Russian society?

Successful Ukraine. Not her rapprochement with the European Union or even entry into it, but her personal successful internal transformation and well -being ... This would have a very strong impact on Russians.