Claim: 'Kyiv is the mother of all Russian Cities'

Corkfeen wrote: »

Both of your examples ended up conflicting with Putin to a large degree. Putin was responsible for initiating investigations into both of them but his primary reason would appear to be because he disagreed/conflicted with them rather than for dealing with corruption.

110 people currently hold 35% of the nation's wealth, many of these people have gained their wealth through highly corrupt means such as Abramovich who does not conflict with Putin so has remained conviction free. Then there's Putin's wealth which is believed to be in the tens of billions. This was acquired through his position and basically becoming a shareholder in his recently privatised gas network.

All of the major players, including Putin, benefited from the sell-off of soviet state assets during the Yeltsin period. At the time Putin was not particularly influential, but he was savvy. The oil company Putin's money comes from is believed to be Surgutneftegas, which dates back to 1993. Abramovich's money also dates back to this time (Sibneft 1995)
It was only later that the the oligarchs, mainly Berezovsky, persuaded Yeltzin to select Putin as his successor, thinking that Putin would an ideal man to keep the gravy train rolling along.

But as soon as Putin became president, he started to reverse the nationalisation process, causing him to fall out with Berezovsky and certain other oligarchs.
Khodorkovsky's oil company was essentially seized by the state, on tax evasion grounds, and the assets are now owned by Rosneft, which is majority state owned, something like Statoil in Norway.

Those who were "pilfering" from the semi-state Gazprom were fired, and the state regained control of it. This is a reasonable summary of Gazprom from wiki;

1993–1997: Privatisation
Gazprom's political influence increased significantly after the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin appointed the company's chairman Chernomyrdin as his Prime Minister in December 1992. Rem Viakhirev took Chernomyrdin's place as Chairman both of the Board of Directors and of the Managing Committee.[5]
The new government was eager to introduce economic reforms and began to privatize Gazprom. Following the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of 5 November 1992 and the Resolution of the Government of Russia of 17 February 1993, the organization became a joint-stock company and started to distribute shares under the voucher method: every Russian citizen received vouchers to purchase shares of formerly state-owned companies. By 1994, 33% of the Gazprom's shares had been bought by 747,000 members of the public, mostly in exchange for the vouchers. 15% of the stock was also purchased and allocated to Gazprom employees. The state retained 40% of the shares, but the amount was gradually lowered to 38%.[5] Trading of Gazprom's shares was heavily regulated, and the by-laws of the company prohibited foreigners from owning more than 9% of the shares.
Gazprom slowly established credibility in the western capital markets with an offering of one percent of its equity to foreigners in October 1996 in the form of Global Depository Receipts and a successful large bond issue of US$2.5 billion in 1997.

1998–2000: Tax evasion and asset-stripping
As the Prime Minister of Russia, Chernomyrdin ensured that the state did not closely regulate Gazprom. The company evaded taxes on a large scale, and the state received little money in the form of dividends. The management and board members launched a massive asset-stripping, and Gazprom's property was parceled out to them and their relatives. Some of the largest stripped assets were transferred to the controversial gas-trading company Itera. Chernomyrdin and Gazprom's CEO Rem Viakhirev were leading figures in the process.[7]
In March 1998, for reasons unrelated to Gazprom, Yeltsin fired Chernomyrdin from his position as Prime Minister.[8] On 30 June 1998 Chernomyrdin returned to the company as the chairman of the board of directors.

2000–2003: The Putin reforms
Gazprom's situation changed abruptly in June 2000, when Vladimir Putin became the President of Russia. Putin launched a campaign to rein in the oligarchs. Per his policy of the so-called national champions, he strengthened state control in strategic companies.[9] He launched an attack against what he saw as mismanagement and personal pilfering of state assets. After coming to power, Putin immediately fired Chernomyrdin from his position as the chairman of the company's board and used the stock owned by the state to vote out Vyakhirev. The two men were replaced by Dmitry Medvedev and Alexei Miller, who had previously worked with Putin in Saint Petersburg.[9] Putin's actions were aided by shareholder activism of Hermitage CEO William Browder and former Russian finance minister Boris Fyodorov. Miller and Medvedev were assigned the task to stop the asset-stripping, and also to regain lost possessions. By denying Itera access to Gazprom's pipelines, Miller almost forced Itera to declare bankruptcy. As a result, Itera's management agreed to sell the stolen assets back to Gazprom.

2005–2006: Establishment of government control
In June 2005, Gazprombank, Gazpromivest Holding, Gazfond and Gazprom Finance B. V., subsidiaries of Gazprom, agreed to sell a 10.7399% share to the state-owned company Rosneftegaz for $7 billion, at what some western analysts viewed as an undervalued price.[11] The sale was to be completed by 25 December 2005, which, combined with the 38% share of the State Property Committee, gave the Russian government control over the company.[12]
As the Russian state had acquired a controlling share, it removed the 20% restriction on foreign investment in Gazprom, and the company became fully open to foreign investors

I suppose you could argue that if Putin were to take this "de-nationalisation" process to its logical conclusion, he should hand his own oil interests over to the state too. And also seize those of Abramovich. But maybe he believes that in some cases, they have built up their companies over the years through their own personal initiative, even if they did get their start during the great Yeltzin sell-off.

In other words, he did not agree with the sell-off, nor was he responsible for it, but he understood at the time what was happening and how to profit from it. Is that corrupt?

That is funny alright, I had only posted a few days ago that "Khodorkovsky's oil company was essentially seized by the state". It all happened a few years ago, but the timing of the investigation/judgement is interesting given the current whipping up of anti-Putin sentiment by Obama and Cameron in their media soundbytes.
There is of course no chance that the Russian Federation will pay this fine.

It begs an interesting question though. Suppose you are against the "corrupt practice" whereby State assets (which have been built up over many years by all the citizens) are privatised, thereby enriching a few well connected oligarchs.
What if someone comes to power who reverses that process? Are they corrupt? "Privately owned" oil assets were seized and nationalised in many countries over the years, eg in Iran and numerous South American countries.
The process is always declared to be unlawful by those who represent the interests of the multinational corporations.

Anyway, if some of the gas and oil fields around the our coasts were seized by the State I would be the first to cheer.

hinault wrote: »

What has this OP got to do with Atheism and Agnosticism?

I didn't start this thread, believe it or not
It started by itself miraculously, after a schism in another thread.

comongethappy wrote: »

Are you assuming that the court arbitrating in the Hague is corrupt?

Not corrupt, but sometimes the legalistic approach of lawyers fails to "see the wood for the trees". Lets say, hypothetically speaking, I broke into a Swiss bank, and found some gold bars there that had come from the melted down teeth and personal effects of murdered jews in the 1940's. I might take the gold and distribute it to charities. That would be unlawful.

Secondly, the Hague are only inviting ridicule by this judgement. Why not fine Cuba a couple of billion for stealing all those casinos and villas in Havana back in the revolution? Plenty of Cuban expats in Miami would like that, but the rest of the world would just laugh.
Next time the Hague are involved in some human rights case, their authority will seem to have a little less respect than it should.

comongethappy wrote: »

(Also.... What oil fields around our coast?)
The gas fields are gov property

Its mostly gas, but there is oil too.
I'm not necessarily suggesting the state should seize the particular oilfield in the link at this time. But in general, I think we should adopt the Norwegian approach; don't be in any great hurry to extract it, maintain majority State control, and think several generations ahead. Most of their revenues are ploughed back into education health and social services. Everyone is pretty well off as a result, but no-one is disgustingly rich. Future generations of Norwegians will inherit a resource, not a debt.
Yes, I am aware that prospectors spend a lot of money looking for oil and gas before they find it, and have a right to make a profit etc etc...
so I won't be dragging the thread off-topic to go into all that. Suffice it to say that the Irish people do not get a good deal when they buy back their own natural resources from private enterprise. And Ray Burke.