There are three problems in Russia: the banning of the Russian national team from competing at the Olympic Games in South Korea under the national flag, Suleiman Kerimov’s criminal adventures in France and the devilishness with banks.
El Murid
The IOC’s decision puts Russia’s participation in the Olympics in question. The Russian flag, anthem and national symbols are banned, only “clean” athletes are allowed and only under a neutral flag. Russia’s IOC is disqualified. Mutko, in his personal capacity, is suspended for life from participating in IOC events.
There are two ways to go. Both are worse. Boycott the Olympics and all sorts of “asymmetrical” responses like refusing to broadcast or agreeing to the conditions put forward and sending our athletes in an individual capacity and without Russian affiliation.
Both options propaganda will naturally present as necessary, so that’s not the issue.
The boycott threatens to continue the repression already in relation to the World Cup. Our team may not be allowed to participate, despite its status as the host of the championship. Given the team’s zero chances, this will have no effect on the final result, but the blow to the country’s prestige and, most importantly, the cruel blow to Putin personally will be extremely unpleasant. However, even without a boycott of the Olympics, the question of our team’s admission to the championship is likely to be raised.
Sending Olympians to the Olympics on the IOC’s terms is also a blow to prestige, since it would mean agreeing to the IOC verdict, which recognizes the existence of a state system of doping in Russia.
So far, everything is developing as it should: there is a demonstration that neither Russia as a state nor Putin as president is capable of protecting athletes. If we remember that in a month and a half a campaign to clean up Russian mafiosi and their capital throughout the West will begin, the demonstration of Putin’s powerlessness has a special background. The hint is very specific: guys, no one will save and protect you. Either say goodbye to your loot or cooperate fully. Otherwise, you will become pariahs, just like Putin, and beggarly pariahs at that.
Nezygary
The International Olympic Movement today is such a global corporation. The most important goal for it is to siphon off money. The volume of funds is calculated in billions of dollars. The IOC’s revenue for 2016 was 3.5 billion. TV broadcasts have generated about 10 billion in recent years. Sponsors bring in up to 3 billion dollars.
It should also be remembered that huge public funds and funds of national companies are pumped into the preparation of the Olympics. Beijing spent about 44 billion on the Olympics, London 14-15 billion. They also want their part of the income – and first of all, reputational. At the same time, the IOC and the Olympic movement is one of the most corrupt structures. Bribes and kickbacks are a daily occurrence.
The strongest influence on the IOC, its policy and the policy of the Federations is exerted by sponsors. Among them are Coca Cola (IOC partner since 1928), Omega (since 1932), McDonalds (since 1968), Visa (since 1986), ATOS (since 1989), Panasonic (since 1992), P&G (since 2012), Bridgestone (since 2014), Samsung (since 2014), DOW (since 2014), GE (since 2016).
Any scandal, especially those related to the results of international sports competitions and the purity of the competition, is a huge fear of the IOC to lose audience and sponsors.
International mega-companies have a huge impact on the IOC and federations. Far more powerful than GosDep or the CIA. Because they fill the budget. Western society, with its public opinion, reacts harshly to any cheating scandal. The consumer leaves, IOC and sponsors lose audience and money.
Therefore IOC and Federations cannot but react, they are under the same information blow as athletes and national teams. Now a few lines about Grigory Mikhailovich Rodchenkov, who allegedly promised to destroy the entire Russian Olympic sport. Rodchenkov came to the Anti-Doping Center in 2005, and since 2006, by order of Fetisov, he has been appointed head of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Anti-Doping Center.
“In 2011, Viktor Petrovich Ivanov’s subordinates from the FSKN conduct an operation to detain Marina Mikhailovna Romanova-Rodchenkova and her husband while transferring five grams of testosterone propionate to the recruited agent Konovalov. Rodchenkova’s apartment is searched.
As a result, the Federal Drug Control Service initiates a criminal case against an organized criminal group for doping trafficking headed by Grigory Rodchenkov, head of the Russian Anti-Doping Center.
The investigation proves that Rodchenkov, using his connections, guaranteed that athletes who bought doping from his family would have clean samples. At the same time, in April 2011, the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia charged Rodchenkov under Article 234 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Illegal trafficking of potent or poisonous substances for the purpose of sale by an organized group on a large scale”. In May, his accounts were seized and the case went to court.
After the suicide attempt, he was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital in Moscow, underwent several forensic medical examinations, which resulted in a diagnosis that clearly did not satisfy the investigation – schizotypal personality disorder, aggravated by stress.
As a result, Rodchenkov himself was suddenly transformed from an accused person into a witness, while his sister still had to stand trial, but only on the single fact of selling banned substances to Mr. Konovalov.
Grigory Rodchenkov himself did not leave his post during the court case and forced treatment for schizophrenia and remained in it even after the conviction of his close relative. The case was unexpectedly closed in 2012. From what and why – we will not speculate. In 2014, Rodchenkov successfully worked at the Sochi Olympics.
Later, already in the United States, Rodchenko said that he had cooperated with one of the intelligence services. But the fact that the U.S. media hit the FSB specifically, may indicate that in this case, they are also the party rather affected. And Rodchenko, if he cooperated with anyone, it was more likely the FSKN. What is interesting to us is that a man who was caught selling doping, swapping samples, suffering from schizophrenia – continued to work for Vitaly Mutko.
Methodology
Several concepts for reforming Russia’s law enforcement agencies are currently being discussed (already at the presidential level) and are planned to be implemented after the elections.
The first one is to join the FSB with a number of law enforcement agencies that were part of the unified KGB in the USSR. We are talking about the FSO and others. This may become a prerequisite for further movement towards the concept of a single super-agency, the very “Ministry of State Security”, about which there have already been leaks in the media.
There are also discussions of a variant in which it is planned to leave the issues of the president’s security to some separate service.
The second concept deals with the work of the investigative bodies due to the real problem of confrontation between the investigation and prosecutor’s supervision in high-profile cases. The concept envisages either a partial redistribution of the powers of the Investigative Committee in favor of the Prosecutor General’s Office (in order to eliminate the confrontation between prosecutor’s supervision and investigation and reduce the number of unjustified cases initiated by investigators), or a radical option – the liquidation of the Investigative Committee as an independent agency.
It is important to realize that the proposed concepts have passed all the preparatory stages of discussion, and now the question is only Putin’s political choice, and in fact, the specific power clan that will be the closest to the body in this case.
Banksta
1 The story of the collapse of Ildar Klebleyev’s European Standard Bank and the alleged theft of $5 million dollars from the bank’s vault is an excellent illustration of the banksters’ scheme of criminal merger with law enforcement agencies.
At first glance it seems that Klebleyev’s bank suffered, but it is not so. The essence of the scheme is that when the license is revoked (the banksters knew about it in advance), the Central Bank will come to the bank and the management will have to explain where the money disappeared and why the DIA is paying billions to depositors for shareholders.
After the arrival of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the banksters will have certificates of alleged theft and seizure of documents. Most likely, the authorities have already seized a huge amount of reports and documents on the criminal case of theft, and it can last for years (often documents are lost in custody). The scheme is not new, it has been used many times in other banks. One can find examples with the theft of not $5 million, but a full KAMAZ full of money. Naturally, such services are not free of charge.
2. Herman Gref is not in vain gushing about Suleiman Kerimov’s problems in France. First of all, Kerimov has a huge loan in the state bank – the entire gold mining company Polyus is pledged, and secondly, the “suitcases” of $20 million (the total amount of transfer to France for Kerimov 750 million euros), which were taken to Kerimov in France from Switzerland came from deals in Russia. Such murky deals as the sale of Rublyovo Arkhangelsky to Sberbank with the participation of Gref’s cronies of the Gutseriev-Shishkhanov family. The object was handed over to Sberbank with a non-market valuation of $3 billion, something that is worth an order of magnitude less. But Sulik was happy before he was arrested. That is why Gref dared to write a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron.
3. The banksters have gotten really pissed off lately. Sberbank and VTB are competing in the number of failures with private Rosbank and Tinkov. Moscow Industrial Bank and UBRD have started some dubious game, which is most likely caused by the actions of the regulator (the prescriptions have not been expunged).
Banks try to avoid classical deposit agreements and drive customers to high rates on Internet deposits and savings certificates. But the main thing is different – banksters refuse to confirm deposits with certificates with seals or ask for additional payment for confirmation.
It is a bad sign against the background of the fact that the Fitch rating agency openly states about the weakness of banks. Customers remember about the accounting of deposits in notebooks and refusals in payments to DIA and are rightly nervous.
Boiler Room
No sooner had we written a few days ago about the fact that the Russian Rosbank is waiting for cuts, than our assumptions began to be immediately confirmed. Rosbank customers have no access to mobile and internet banking for the second day. When such problems occurred at Otkryvashka, the bank was taken for bailout a few days later. Rosbank behaved much more cautiously, didn’t take unnecessary risks and generally tried to keep a low profile, unless you count the boring bullshit that the pre-managing director used to say on the radio. However, now the bank’s reputation has suffered a serious blow, customers are wondering what happened, maybe it’s some kind of cyberattack related to sanctions.
Or here’s a conspiracy theory. No sooner had Kerimov been detained in France than the Societe Generale branch, which is Rosbank, immediately went dark. It seems to us personally that this is an advertising campaign so that people could remember about the bank and the fact that it is still alive. Otherwise, they might have forgotten. This case once again speaks about the vulnerability of the Russian banking system, and also about the fact that we need to invest in technology, and not just spend budgets on idle chatter. Two days without access is a total asshole.
Sputnik & Pogrom
Meanwhile, in France, a modest official, deprived of his overcoat, Akaki Akakievich of the present, Senator Suleiman Abusaidovich Kerimov of the Republic of Dagestan, continues to suffer distress. In addition to state activity, Senator Kerimov’s national recognition was brought by his business fortune (in his best years it reached 7 billion dollars, putting Kerimov in the top 20 of the Russian “Forbes”), bright ownership of the soccer club “Anji” and a blowjob from Tina Kandelaki in a Ferrari running along the Cote d’Azur coast, as a result of which blowjob Mr. Kerimov crashed, naturally, into a palm tree. In general, Senator Kerimov is an unquestionably positive character – a typical representative of ethnic clans that own the Russian Federation on a par with the FSB aristocracy, no better and no worse than all those Gutserievs and other Nisanovs. He even pays for the Hajj for thousands of Muslims every year, and is not stingy in spending his earnings in Russia for the needs of his co-religionists. Playboy, philanthropist, car racer. Why did the hard-hearted French authorities forbid Kerimov to leave France, taking away his passport?
And the fact is that Mr. Kerimov, according to the French authorities, underpaid them 400 million euros in taxes, understating the value of real estate, which he bought. Thus, one of the villas for Mr. Kerimov was purchased for 37 million euros, while the previous owners sold it for 150 million euros. It is clear, how significant is the savings on high French taxes with such an amazing method of assessing the value. But what someone bought in France is their own business, Kerimov has the money, so why should we care? And here’s why: it turns out that the senator’s real estate scams are only half of the story, and not the most interesting one. On Monday, Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre said that Kerimov not only underestimated the value of real estate – he also brought money into France in suitcases in the literal sense of the word. 20 million euros in a suitcase. And the total amount imported ranges from 400 to 750 million – apparently, not all the suitcases have not yet been found and counted. And the purpose of importing money in suitcases and buying villas is legalization of proceeds of crime.
Yes, at this point you have the same question as me. If a senator from the Republic of Dagestan imports 20 suitcases of criminally obtained money into France (let’s take the minimum estimate), he must first take it out of somewhere. For example, from Russia. And if the Dagestani senators take out of Russia 400 million of cash obtained as a result of crimes, it means that the whole country should stand on its ears: the fact of criminal activity for huge sums has been revealed. And, therefore, there should be criminal cases, searches, interrogations of accountants shaking with fear (as, remember, with the Gogol Center?), and demands to find and sort things out.
But there are none. But there is a fact of nationwide defense of the defamed father of the Fatherland: 13 Russian knights of the French Legion of Honor sent a letter to Macron demanding that Senator Kerimov be returned to the Federation Council, because without him, lawmaking in Russia is stalled. The signatures under the appeal were put by businessman Mikhail Prokhorov, publisher Irina Prokhorova, head of Sberbank German Gref, directors Pavel Lungin and Andrei Konchalovsky, former general director of the Bolshoi Theater Anatoly Iksanov, former president of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Osipov, sculptor Zurab Tsereteli, conductor Valery Gergiev, violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet, art historian Olga Sviblova, writer Viktor Erofeev and deputy, polar explorer Artur Chilingarov.
At the moment, nothing is known about appeals of knights of the French Legion of Honor or other domestic and foreign orders with a demand to the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation to check the information about the suitcases of caches. Probably because there are no such appeals.
“Art historian and director of the “Multimedia Art Museum” Olga Sviblova spoke out in support of Senator Suleiman Kerimov, because of her own experience of facing problems due to the complicated taxation system in France. “I experienced firsthand what it can be like after the death of my husband (director of La Base exhibition center Olivier Moran). France has very complicated legislation, which is very different from Russia,” Sviblova pointed out. “Today, almost any Russian abroad is susceptible to having certain negative attitudes transferred onto him. And I hope that this negative background will not affect Suleiman Kerimov’s case. Especially since he represents the Russian statehood,” Sviblova noted.”
Such is the statehood in Russia nowadays, it seems, that it cannot understand the complicated French legislation on transportation of cache by suitcases. They have written laws that you can’t understand without praying!
Shit show
“Rostec is about to sell 26% of Kalashnikov Concern for ridiculous money. They plan to sell the stake for 72.6 yards of Russian rupees, which is a little more than a yard and a quarter in bucks. The funny thing here is this: in May 2012, the BrandLab experts estimated the value of the Kalashnikov brand alone, without any manufacturing facilities and other hardware, at 10 yards of baht. Of course, it is not Google (somewhere around 82.5 yards), but it is also nothing. And now it’s just like this with the old man. Either the legend has become badly tarnished over time, or Rostec doesn’t know how to make money.