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After the end of the Cold War, the ultimate plan to divide Russia into several small parts and distribute Russia’s “unlimited” natural resources had not been completed. Indeed, the Cold War still continues. Ukraine (as part of the former Soviet Union) is a good example. Here, fertile and natural resources are also at stake.
But back to the period between 1990 and 2005 and specifically to today’s Russian Federation.
The Heartland struggle mentioned in the theory “Sea nations versus Land nations” plays here as a geopolitical factor. The Heartland theory suggests that whoever owns Eurasia has the political power and capital to rule the world. Europe and Western Asia contain the richest agricultural areas and natural resources in the world.
Case file:
April 15, 1993 the Russian government founded the open joint stock company Yukos. The founder of Yukos is the government of the Russian Federation. The abbreviation “Yukos” was compiled from the names of the state companies “Yuganskneftegaz”, “KuibyshevnefteOrgSintez”.
According to sources, the privatization of Yukos was carried out in 1995 with violations of Russian competition and antitrust laws. Then Khodorkovsky’s team, in order to participate in the investment competition and loan auction, presented ZAO Laguna and ZAO Reagent, which actually belong to him, assuming that these companies are independent legal entities. Laguna won the tender and auction, but payment for the shares was made at the expense of bank Menatep, whose main source was customer and depositors’ funds. Laguna had no equity. At the same time, the money paid for the shares was not returned to Menatep and the bank went bankrupt several years later. So the shares were received by Khodorkovsky for free, with someone else’s money, that is, they were actually stolen.
An interesting diagram portrays how the Menatep/Yukos oligarchs transferred their shares in a number of complicated stages ultimately hiding their ownership.
Khodorkovsky has become the richest man in Russia because of his companies, Bank Menatep and Yukos (A Russian FIG: Financial Industrial Group), and theft.
In what would later be called the ‘Robbery of the Century’, he had his own bank declared the highest bidder. For less than $350 million, Khodorkovsky became the owner of the oil group, whose value was valued at $9 billion within two years.
But with President Putin taking office in 2000, the culture of graft came to an abrupt end. Moreover, the oligarchs were told that their political meddling had to end.
Khodorkovsky refused to acquiesce. He pumped large sums of money into two opposition parties, appointed an archenemy of the Kremlin as editor-in-chief of a newspaper he had bought, and even hinted that he would be willing to run against Putin in new presidential elections.
His arrest came as a big surprise both at home and abroad. The US State Department expressed deep concern over the “selective” application of Russian justice. Even a Russian state newspaper questioned the ‘absurd’ measure.
But did the Rule of Law not prevail? Khodorkovsky was simply a white-collar criminal and obtained Yukos through theft and robbery methods.
As previously reported, they were assisted by UK specialists such as Peter Michael Bond, Stephen Curtis, Christoper Samuelson, and Valmet Trust. Many suspicious transactions went through the recently bankrupt Russian bank the Amsterdam Trade Bank in the Netherlands. This concerns hundreds of millions of USD transactions, the majority of which ultimately ended up via Russia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands with a shell company managed by the above-mentioned trust company on the Isle of Man with the exotic name Pecunia Universal Ltd. And this is just the money laundering scheme, a snapshot. But hard facts. This is purely meant for money laundering.
The former shareholders and oligarchs of Yukos Oil, namely: Hulley Enterprises Ltd (Cyprus), Yukos Universal Ltd (Isle of Man), and Veteran Petroleum Ltd (Cyprus), formerly GML (Gibraltar) have made since 2014 an absurd claim of more than USD 50 billion to the Russian Federation for the expropriation and bankruptcy of Yukos Oil.
Additional background notes:
Knowing, that after the fall of communism at the time of the Yeltsin period, these persons acquired almost all of Russia through Financial-Industrial Groups (FIG). And not always through legal means, but also by illegal means and brutal violence. The FIGs and oligarchs had no understanding of the international financial world and structures and were assisted by Western lawyers, accountants, and other trust specialists. Most of these firms were based in the UK and the UK financial spiderweb of former colonies.
In fact, there was a sell-out of Russia’s strategic industry (oil, gas, steel, and banking system). This took place in the period from 1990-2005. Capital flight and tax avoidance and evasion, money laundering structures, and annual funnelling of billions in Russian money.
When Yeltsin resigned and was given immunity from Putin, the latter began a renationalization of Russia’s strategic industry, otherwise, there would be a huge risk that Russia would be controlled by foreign shareholders and stakeholders. A valid argument from a Russian point of view.
The renationalization was accompanied by a gentleman’s agreement between Putin and the oligarchs. This included the following: The oligarchs were NOT allowed to interfere in Russia’s political affairs.
An example of an oligarch who broke this accord was Michael Khodorkovsky (FIG Menatep-Yukos Oil) he disappeared to Siberia for years and the FIG was renationalized in the well-known Russian way.
Many other oligarchs adhered to the accord (Abramovich and Fridman being some well-known examples).
With some oligarchs feeling the financial pain of sanctions and other international measures, there is some commotion among them. Some of them respond publicly or withdraw their responses due to internal pressure.
But knowing that the oligarchs are also afraid of the reactions of Putin and the faithful. The consequences are not good for them. Putin does not listen to them, he has tolerated them for the last 20 years and or uses them as a domestic and foreign policy tool.
Putin only listens (especially now) to his small group within the FSB, SVR, and the military. The oligarchs do not belong to this and they know it (see the cases of Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, Litvinenko, Curtis, and Samuelson are shining examples of them).
According to source information:
“The Khodorkovsky file was a set-up by the US and UK to eventually obtain the Yukos oil fields. Geopolitical games. Yeltsin and his oligarchs sold out Russia and Putin put a stop to it.” …
“Sanctions against Putin and Russia now and the staged Ukrainian story? The hypocrisy of the highest order.” …
“In 1988, CIA-front Riggs Bank bought a controlling interest in a little-known company based in the Isle of Man called the Valmet Group. According to the 9/11 report, Riggs-Valmet “immediately began business contracts with Russian KGB operatives,” and it was this relationship that led to the creation of Khodorkovsky’s Bank Menatep. Both Riggs-Valmet and Menatep then became conduits for moving KGB money out of Russia. In 1994, Riggs reduced its stake in Valmet after Menatep purchased a 25% share in the company.” …
“So not only was Valmet allegedly used to stash Yukos assets, if you remember my last post, this means it was tied in with the Bank of New York money laundering scandal and the missing IMF funds.” …
“Khodorkovsky was once the richest man in Russia because of his companies, Bank Menatep and Yukos, which were both tied to the KGB, Valmet, the CIA-front company, Riggs Bank, the Bank of New York scandal, and the missing 7 billion USD IMF funds.” …
“Mentioned KGB operatives were during the Yeltsin era. Not Putin’s. Also is known that former KGB employees worked for oligarchs after the fall of the USSR.”
You can ask yourself the legal question of the 50 billion USD claim of the former Yukos shareholders is still valid after reading this article. Multiple verdicts are based on insufficient legal grounds because of the lack of all necessary financial information.
According to source information, all verdicts were based on incomplete grounds and should be dismissed. A proper look into the whole picture shed a no-go for the former Yukos shareholders and their 50 billion USD claim towards the Russian state.
Perhaps a settlement between the US and Russia to close the file after the dust in Ukraine is gone?
Source confirmation of the parallel reason for the sell-out of Russia with the support of money laundering and tax evasion schemes of an oligarch/robber baron:
“More than 17 years ago, on June 23, 2005, an annual meeting of shareholders of the oil company Yukos took place” …
“Apart from that, in May 2005, the Meschansky District Court of Moscow passed a guilty sentence upon Mikhail Khodorkovsky for a series of economic crimes, including tax affairs. Nevertheless, the gathered in the meeting headed by the former main banker Viktor Geraschenko, radiated optimism. He didn’t mention that the losses were the result of activities of Khodorkovsky if not direct accomplices of machinations”…
“Apart from that, the banker admitted that in 2003 Yukos had been preparing to sell at least 40% of its shares for more than 25 billion USD to one of the biggest US and UK oil companies” …
“Negative ramifications of such selling had been obvious. The US/UK would have disposed of Russia’s mineral resources through Khodorkovsky. Russia would have constantly pointed at its inferiority and would have constantly given instructions by the US/UK.”
On May 20, 2022, the Russian Ministry of Justice included Khodorkovsky in the list of foreign agents.
Further according to sources Khodorkovsky has financed the US proposal to increase the military help to Ukraine up to 1 billion USD a year and the UK thesis about “Why Minsk-2 cannot solve the Ukraine crisis”
How? By breaching again the gentlemen’s agreement between the oligarchs and Putin not to interfere with state interests.
It is known that he and his foundation Future of Russia one of the key sponsors of the analytical center The Atlantic Council, attached to NATO and the British center Chatham House.
Even the former US ambassador in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution expresses warm gratitude to Khodorkovsky’s foundation.
The Atlantic Council confirms the fact of the financing by the Future of Russia Foundation on the list of its benefactors. Chatham House confirms that Khodorkovsky’s Future of Russia Foundation is its constant sponsor.
The yearly funding of both is between 100,000 and 150,000 GBP each.
Questions are raised. Which state pursues an active policy and interferes in the affairs of other states? Is it, really, only Russia, as the political analysts from The Atlantic Council and Chatham House assure, among others bought with the money of Khodorkovsky’s foundation?
According to source information:
In 1998, Khodorkovsky was released in the IMF case in which he was accused of helping to launder USD 10 billion through his own Menatep bank and the BoNY. He had very influential friends in the USA, it turned out. Look further in the Edmund Safra saga.
With his billions, in fact, stolen from the Russian people, he made some powerful friends. He set up a foundation on the model of the Open Society of American Soros, which he called the Open Russia Foundation. He invited two powerful men to the board of directors: Kissinger and Jacob Rothschild. He then forged links with some of the most powerful circles in DC, where he was appointed to the advisory board of the private equity firm Carlyle Group, where he attended board meetings with fellow advisers such as George H.W. Bush and James Baker III.
Khodorkovsky landed behind bars in Russia was the fact that he was also engaged in a US-backed coup to win the Russian presidency during the planned 2004 Russian Duma elections. He lost because the plot failed miserably and the rest is history. Obama and Hillary had their value judgements ready, of course.
At the time of his arrest, Khodorkovsky was negotiating through his Carlyle friend Bush, father of then-President George W. Bush, the sale of 40% of Yukos to either Rice’s former company, Chevron or ExxonMobil, in a move that would have dealt a crippling blow to the only asset Russia had left to use in rebuilding Russia’s devastated economy: oil and exports via state-owned pipelines to the West for USD.
During the subsequent Russian state prosecution of Yukos, it came to light that Khodorkovsky had also secretly contracted with UK’s Lord Rothschild not only to support Russian culture through Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia Foundation but also to support the Russian economy. In the event of his possible arrest (Khodorkovsky apparently knew he was playing a risky game by trying to stage a coup against Putin), 40% of his Yukos shares would pass into Lord Rothschild’s hands.
Pecunia Universal Ltd? Yukos Finance BV? The Isle of Man and NL?
A proper look into the whole picture shed a no-go for the former Yukos shareholders and their 50 billion USD claim towards the Russian state.
See the comparison of Yukos Finance Ltd and Pecunia Universal Ltd (Isle of Man) and the same period, namely 1999/2000. A stock shell company and a money bag shell company. As you may know, the Dutch case has been referred back to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal after the Supreme Court overturned the two verdicts of the Hague Court of Appeal from 2018 and 2020 at the end of 2021.
The reason was fraudulent information by the claimants from the start of all lawsuits. Also, the same sort of cases are ongoing in the USA and the UK.
Going back to my previous statement, the links between Khodorkovsky, Kissinger, and Rothschild are concerned. See the name change from the Open Russian Foundation to the Future of Russia Foundation and scroll down.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/04529663/officers
UK connection:
In 2019, Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Future Russia Foundation, based in Britain, hired John Lough, an expert at the Royal Institute of International Relations Chatham House and a former NATO representative in Moscow. John Bruce Lough is a participant in the project of the British secret services called Integrity Initiative. As we remember, the activity of ‘Integrity Initiative’ consisted in interfering in the internal affairs of European countries and waging information war against Russia.
In the lists of the project, Mr. Lough is neighbouring upon William Browder (tax swindler known as British agent “Solomon”) and Vladimir Ashurkov, a close associate of Alexey Navalny. Let us remind that the latter, on his own initiative, traded with himself, proposing his services to British spies who worked under diplomatic cover.
Nowadays, Khodorkovsky, entrenched in London, trying to make an impression that he is “free and independent”, has been working on orders of his patrons, and has been financing British spies and pathological Russophobes.
And it’s far from Khodorkovsky’s own merit that he is still not charged under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “High Treason” pertaining to “assistance rendered to a foreign State… in hostile activities to the external security of the Russian Federation”, or under fresh Article 271.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (cooperation on confidential bases with a foreign State, international or foreign organization), although there are awash of indications of illegal activity.
Further see:
European Parliament written Question:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000092_EN.html
Answer VP European Commission:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2019-000092-ASW_EN.html
