Commentary: Offshore companies are not visible from the Kremlin | Comments from DW Reviewers and Guest Contributors | DW

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Hundreds of journalists from all over the world studied 12 million documents from offshore registries of major registrars and collected the most remarkable things in the Pandora Dossier. A new scandal has emerged, no less ambitious than the Panama Papers. Among his defendants are the family of the President of Azerbaijan, the Jordanian King Abdullah II, Czech Prime Minister Andrei Babish and the head of the Ukrainian state Volodymyr Zelensky.

There are also Russians: the former head of Vladimir Putin for work in Dresden, the head of the Rostec state concern Sergei Chemezov, the head of Channel One Konstantin Ernst and Svetlana Krivonogikh, whom the media, despite the Kremlin denials, call a close friend of Vladimir Putin. But the Kremlin pretends that it does not understand “what kind of information this is.”

Corruption with eyes wide shut

It is stupid to ask if any of the offshore Russians accidentally paid taxes to the budget of the Russian Federation from this money. That is why financial resources are diverted to the “tax haven” in order not to pay anything to anyone.

Ivan Preobrazhensky

It would seem like a good reason for the authorities to ask the same Chemezov. Moreover, Vladimir Putin probably sees him regularly and can do it personally. For example: in the same Czech Republic, the National Center for Combating Organized Crime has already announced that it will check information from Pandora’s Dossier, which concerns Prime Minister Andrei Babis. Which is not surprising, knowing that this is not a dictatorship, but a parliamentary republic, and where, in addition, the next elections will begin this Friday.

They do not intend to check anything in Jordan, this is not a democracy, but a monarchy, but King Abdullah II at least threatens journalists with a trial. In Russia, according to a good tradition, they decided to pretend that there was simply no scandal.

The only meaningful conclusion drawn by the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov on the basis of these publications was that “the world’s largest offshore tax and tax gap” turns out to be the United States. Well, and the standard message is that there are no American politicians in Pandora’s Dossier, which means that it is clear who and why “leaked” incriminating evidence to the media. The truthfulness of the information itself does not bother anyone in the Kremlin.

Investigate investigators

However, only the official reaction was calm. The unofficial one is much tougher. The authorities, apparently, intend to punish the “slanderers” almost as harshly as in the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who published anti-corruption investigations.

No, no one has been jailed yet. But Alexander Ionov, who became famous for denunciations to Russian media, which are then announced as foreign agents, promised to snitch on ICIJ, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, on his social networks. He later rewrote the Facebook post and removed the reference to ICIJ, leaving only their partner, the investigative journalist group OCCRP, which recently announced it would stop working in Russia for security reasons. As far as foreigners are concerned, he suggests declaring the investigators an “undesirable organization”.

For everyone who has collaborated with her in recent years, this, under the new Russian legislation, will mean a restriction in rights or transformation into foreign agents. Including, for separately and clearly deliberately mentioned by Ionov “Novaya Gazeta”.

Friends – everything, enemies – the law

For Russia, the outcome of the publication of Pandora’s Dossier is already clear. Instead of checking and dismissing possible corrupt officials, the anti-corruption investigation now creates problems only for the investigators themselves. Such is the “culture of abolition” in the Kremlin style. If you say something unpleasant, you instantly become an undesirable person in Russia or an entire organization. And everything you say after that is automatically declared hostile propaganda.

At the same time, everyone who is engaged in investigative journalism within the country is also being pressed. A year ago, a powerful cluster of independent publications was almost completely destroyed. So that, as they say, they do not slander the beautiful Russia of the present.

Friends – everything, enemies – the law. This is the principle of Putin’s policy. And the corrupt officials in Russia will be appointed by the Investigative Committee, choosing them from among the politically unreliable.

Author: Ivan Preobrazhensky – Ph.D. in Political Science, an expert on Central and Eastern Europe, a columnist for a number of media outlets. Written a weekly column on DW. Ivan Preobrazhensky on Facebook: Ivan Preobrazhensky

The commentary expresses the personal opinion of the author. It may not coincide with the opinion of the Russian editorial staff and Deutsche Welle in general.

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