Rape of Russia & Yukos

Rape of Russia & Yukos Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Centre) Boris Yeltsin (Right) Oligarch Vladimir Potanin (Left) Riches mid- 1990s:   via loans-for-shares mass privatisation scheme under Boris Yeltsin. Chief architects: Anatoly Chubais & Yegor Gaidar / involved 'shock therapy' reforms, resulting in mass poverty & hyperinflation. Interesting Aside/History Maria Gaidar, 32 (2015) Bolivia childhood (part) stepfather / x2 husbands Harvard (2011) advised Moscow's deputy mayor 2012-2013 former deputy governor Kirov Region 2009-2011 accepts job of:  deputy governor Odessa (Jul. 2015) led by former Georgian Pres. Mikhail Saakashvili Sounds a nasty piece of US-educated work with no loyalty to Russia  [here] Inspired by Ukie 2004  'Orange Revolution' Maria Smirnova ... errr, Gaidar co-founded 'Democratic Alternative' or 'DA!' anti-Kremlin youth group pro-Kremlin supporters rebranded 'Dam!' something to do with sexual surrender (slang) LOL ... I love the Russians  ;) Gaidar intended to apply for Israeli citizenship (2015) but changed her mind & withdrew application, although she had anticipated lining up three citizenships. Presumably Gaidar is Jewish, as Israel is a Jewish State.  Ukraine's Chocolate King granted her Ukie citizenship (2015).  Maria Gaidar renounced Russian citizenship Aug. 2015 ... but, unfortunately, she had months to reconsider before finalisation of paperwork (status unknown as at 2016, no further search completed). Maria Gaidar associated with 'non-systemic opposition' / described as: head of Social Inquiry foundation active participant in number of liberal pro-Western movements TASS  Jul 2015 Yegor Gaidar, former PM / architect post-Soviet economy father:  Timur Gaidar Timur Gaidar grew up part of Russia's communist revolution 'aristocracy' was taught he was part of elite transforming the world creating a new kind of (Soviet) future Timur Gaidar became military correspondent for Pravda / reported on Bay of Pigs Cuba 1962 Yegor Gaidar's grandfather (Timur's father): one of heroes of Russian Revolution, Arkady Gaidar / volunteered to fight Germans / killed 1941 Timur Gaidar believed in the soviet system / [system]  described as having been good for him & his family http://archive.is/GZqpK *Maria Gaidar's family connections probably explain how she got away with the fifth column protest dramas in Russia, without getting the prison sentences some of the others did? *gets a bit confusing / finding it hard to keep the generations straight. F. William Engdahl   http://www.voltairenet.org/article168007.html Correction added The Real Crime of M. Khodorkovsky by F. William Engdahl The final decision in the Russian trial against former oil oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has drawn dramatic statements of protest from the US Obama Administration and governments around the world labeling Russian justice as tyrannical and worse. What is carefully omitted from the Khodovkorsky story however is the true reason Putin arrested and imprisoned the former head of Russia’s largest private oil giant, Yukos. Voltaire Network | Frankfurt (Germany) | 5 January 2011 Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s real crime was not stealing Russia’s assets for a pittance in the bandit era of Yeltsin. His real crime is that he was a key part of a Western intelligence operation to dismantle and destroy what remains of Russia as a functioning state. When the facts are known the justice served on him is mild by comparison to US or UK standard treatment of those convicted of treason against the state. Obama’s torture prison at Guantánamo is merely one example of Washington’s double standard. According to the politically correct sanitized account in Wikipedia: “Yukos Oil Company was a petroleum company in Russia which, until 2003, was controlled by Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky…Khodorkovsky was convicted and sent to prison…Yukos was one of the biggest and one of the most successful Russian companies in 2000-2003. In 2003, following a tax reassessment, the Russian government presented Yukos with a series of tax claims that amounted to $27 billion. As Yukos’s assets were frozen by the government at the same time, the company was not able to pay these tax demands. On August 1, 2006, a Russian court declared Yukos bankrupt. Most of Yukos’s assets were sold at low prices to oil companies owned by the Russian government. The Parliamentary Council of Europe has condemned Russia’s campaign against Yukos and its owners as manufactured for political reasons and a violation of human rights.” If we dig a little deeper however we find a quite different case. As he stepped out of his private plane in Siberia in October 2003 Khodorkovsky was arrested. He was arrested, as Wikipedia correctly states, for tax crimes. What they did not say is that he at the tender age of 40 had risen to become the richest man in Russia worth some $15 billion by fraudulent acquisition of state assets during the lawless Yeltsin era. In an auction run by his own bank, Khodorkovsky paid $309 million for Yukos. In 2003 the same company was assessed as worth $45 billion, and not owing to Khodorkovsky’s management genius. In 1998, Khodorkovsky had been let free in a US case where he was charged with helping launder $10 billion with his own bank and the Bank of New York. He had very influential friends in the US it appeared. The then head of the Republic National Bank of New York, Edmund Safra, was murdered some months later in his Monaco apartment reportedly from members of an alleged “Russian mafia” whom he had cheated in a drug money laundering scheme. But there was more. Khodorkovsky built some impressive ties in the West. With his new billions in effect stolen from the Russian people, he made some powerful friends. He set up a foundation modeled on US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society, calling it the Open Russia Foundation. He invited two powerful Westerners to its board—Henry Kissinger and Jacob Lord Rothschild. Then he set about to develop ties with some of the most powerful circles in Washington where he was named to the Advisory Board of the secretive private equity firm, Carlyle Group where he attended board meetings with fellow advisors such as George H.W. Bush and James Baker III. However, the real crime that landed Khodorkovsky behind Russian bars was the fact that he was in the middle of making a US-backed coup d’etat to capture the Russian presidency in planned 2004 Russian Duma elections. Khodorkovsky was in the process of using his enormous wealth to buy enough seats in the coming Duma elections that he could change Russian laws regarding ownership of oil in the ground and of pipelines transporting same. In addition he planned to directly challenge Putin and become Russian President. As part of the horse trade that won Putin the tacit support of the wealthy so-called Russian Oligarchs, Putin had extracted agreement that they be allowed to hold on to their wealth provided they repatriate a share back into Russia and provided they not interfere in domestic Russian politics with their wealth. Most oligarchs agreed, as did Khodorkovsky at the time. They remain established Russian businessmen. Khodorkovsky did not. Moreover, at the time of his arrest Khodorkovsky was in the process of negotiating via his Carlyle friend George H.W. Bush, father of the then-President George W. Bush, the sale of 40% of Yukos to either Condi Rice’s former company, Chevron or ExxonMobil in a move that would have dealt a crippling blow to the one asset left Russia and Putin to use for the rebuilding of the wrecked Russian economy: oil and export via state-owned pipelines to the West for dollars. During the ensuing Russian state prosecution of Yukos, it came to light that Khodorkovsky had also secretly made a contract with London’s Lord Rothschild not merely to support Russian culture via the Open Russia Foundation of Khodorkovsky. In the event of his possible arrest (Khodorkovsky evidently knew he was playing a high-risk game trying to create a coup against Putin) the 40% share of his Yukos stocks would pass into the hands of Lord Rothschild. The crocodile tears of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the violations of Khodorkovsky’s human rights hide a far deeper agenda that is not being admitted. Washington used the Russian to try to reach its goal of totally destroying the only power left on the earth with sufficient military strike power to challenge the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance strategy—control of the entire planet. When seen in that light the sweet loaded words “human rights” take on a quite different meaning. F. William Engdahl US-German author and analyst of geopolitical and economic issues. His newest book is Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. Earlier works include A Century of War : Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (2011, republished in a new edition) and Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century (2010). http://www.voltairenet.org/article168007.html Sputnik http://sputniknews.com/business/20160325/1036954131/khodorkovsky-yukos-shares.html Khodorkovsky De Facto Stole Yukos Shares From Russian Gov't - Investigators Business 13:34 25.03.2016  (updated 14:07 25.03.2016) Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky had de facto stolen Yukos oil company shares from the state, the Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Arrested in Russia on October 25, 2003, Khodorkovsky spent 10 years in a prison for fraud and tax evasion before being pardoned. Following his release he left the country. In December 2015, a Russian court charged Khodorkovsky, who was then in London, in absentia for organizing the 1998 murder of Vladimir Petukhov, the mayor of the western Siberian town of Nefteyugansk. In 2007, former Yukos security head Alexei Pichugin was convicted of planning the mayor's killing. "At the current stage, we cannot speak about all the evidence gathered by the investigation, but there is enough to conclude that Khodorkovsky, having obtained shares from the government without investing anything, de facto stealing them, is now once again trying to deceive the state by claiming a further $50 billion from it," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. "Khodorkovsky, having acquired undervalued Yukos shares, was deceptive in pledging an investment of $350 million towards the company's development, which he did not go through with," he added. In February, Russia sent a request to the global police service, Interpol, asking for Khodorkovsky to be placed on the international wanted list. The 1995 privatization of now defunct energy giant Yukos was carried out in violation of antitrust laws, Russia's Investigative Committee said. "According to the investigation, the 1995 privatization of Yukos was carried out in violation of competition and antitrust legislation. Mikhail Khodorkovsky's team falsely presented two firms de facto belonging to him — JSC Laguna and JSC Reagent — as independent legal entities for the investment competition," committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. Companies that filed lawsuits to The Hague arbitration court over the Yukos case had no right to do so due to fraud, making the court's decision unenforceable, Russian Investigative Committee said Friday. According to committee spokesman Vladimir Markin, after Yukos shares were "de facto stolen" by Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his accomplices, they repeatedly changed hands between Russian and foreign legal entities before eventually being acquired by Hulley Enterprises Ltd, Yukos Universal Ltd and Veteran Petroleum Ltd. "All these companies were also controlled by Khodorkovsky and payments were only made on paper, they did not in fact take place" he said. "These companies were not investors and they had no right to file a lawsuit with the international arbitration court in The Hague, claiming their rights as investors were violated. Therefore, the court's decision is not enforceable," Markin underscored. http://sputniknews.com/business/20160325/1036954131/khodorkovsky-yukos-shares.html Seattle Times Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky Re:   Yukos oil company (dismantled) decisions pending -- dispute relates to 2003 Khodorkovsky arrest on charges of financial wrongdoing -- Khodorkovsky seeking to seize Russian assets abroad, incl. France Netherlands: 2014 arbitration ruling decision: payment of $50 billion to ex-shareholders of Russia -- decision not recognised by Russia Khodorkovsky -- then takes the fight to several European courtrooms France -- Russia has won x3 court cases -- x4 more rulings expected, Paris Netherlands -- decision due next week http://www.seattletimes.com/business/french-courts-caught-up-in-yukos-vs-russia-assets-fight/ ---------------------- ---------------------- COMMENT This is pretty much the first I've really read anything about the rape of Russia in the 1990s.