A registry of foreign agents to Russia, compiled by the Justice Department, includes many of Washington’s most powerful legal, communications and lobbying firms, including Sidley Austin, Venable, APCO and White & Case. A review of those records, by the Center for Responsive Politics, found 279 registrations of Russian agents in the United States. More here.
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“Putin’s inner circle is already subject to personal U.S. sanctions, imposed over Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s’ Crimea region,” the Reuters news agency points out. … “But the so-called ‘oligarchs’ list’ that was released on Tuesday … covers many
people beyond Putin’s circle and reaches deep into Russia’s business elite.”
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is among the 114 senior political figures in Russia’s government who made the list, along with 42 of Putin’s aides, Cabinet ministers such as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and top officials in Russia’s leading spy agencies, the FSB and GRU. The CEOs of major state-owned companies, including energy giant Rosneft and Sberbank, are also on the list.
So are 96 wealthy Russians deemed “oligarchs” by the Treasury Department, which said each is believed to have assets totaling $1 billion or more. Some are the most famous of wealthy Russians, among them tycoons Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Prokhorov, who challenged Putin in the 2012 election. Aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a figure in the Russia investigation over his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is included.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich dismissed the list as simply a “who’s who” of Russian politics. He told Russian news agencies Tuesday he wasn’t surprised to find his name on the list, too, saying that it “looks like a ‘who’s who’ book.” Dvorkovich stopped short of saying how Russia would react to it, saying the Kremlin would “monitor the situation.” More here.
*** So when there are murder cases of Russian asylees in Britain, what are the agencies in the United States thinking?
Well there was Mikhail Lesin, a former friend of Putin found dead in his hotel in Dupont Circle, Washington DC. Then there was Operation Ghost Stories, the massive spy swap.
Imagine what the context and case reference is for the FBI when it comes to Russian operations in the United States and in allied countries.Or how many planes have been shot out of the sky where clues and evidence point to Russia? More explained in video below.
Beyond the attempted assassination of Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury two weeks ago, there was yet another confirmed death.
Whoever is behind the murder of a prominent Russian exile, who believed he was on a Kremlin hit list, managed to get inside his home without breaking in, police believe.
Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was found dead at home last week at his home in southwest London, and officers are now hunting for the culprits. His official cause of death is “compression to the neck.”
Before his death, Glushkov warned that a close friend of his had been murdered, and that he would be next.
In a Monday morning update on the investigation, the Metropolitan Police said they examined Glushkov’s house and found no signs of forced entry.
*** How bad is this trend?
