Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

Dead Russian Oligarchs and those Still Alive

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Many mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs have gained the attention of those following the wealth of Russians and Putin…

In part from Newsweek:

Two Russian oligarchs were found dead this week alongside their family in luxurious homes in Russia and Spain, with the two cases discovered within 24 hours of each other.

Both deaths are believed by police to be cases of murder-suicide, but the evidence supporting these theories is muddled by the fact that the events happened so close together, with the two oligarchs the last of several who have been found to have died by suicide since the beginning of the year.

The longer list includes Sergey Protosenya, Vladislav Avaev, Vasily Melnikov, Mikhail Watford, Alexander Tyulyakov and Leonid Shulman. Click here to read their resumes and reported death details.

There are many many more oligarchs that are for sure getting their affairs in order meaning hiding their assets and hiding themselves or are simply laundering their reputations…from whom and what is quite crazy too. They are paying for higher security of themselves and their families and their assets while some are making donations to Western entities to save face as well as to keep off of sanctions lists by many governments.

In part, an initial database of oligarchic donations to more than 200 of the most prestigious nonprofits in the U.S. — from museums to universities to think tanks. Recipients included some of the country’s foremost institutions, such as Harvard University, the Brookings Institution, and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. U.S. nonprofits even accepted funds from the richest oligarchs in Russia. Vladimir Potanin, considered Russia’s wealthiest oligarch, successfully donated to multiple significant U.S. nonprofits, including the Kennedy Center and Guggenheim Museum. And he didn’t stop at donations: Potanin managed to obtain seats on the Guggenheim’s board of trustees and the global advisory board of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. All of this transpired despite Potanin’s “close” relationship with Putin and the fact that, as author David Hoffman describes in his groundbreaking 2011 book, The Oligarchs, Potanin acted as the “ringleader” for the oligarchs as they seized assets and political power in the mid-1990s. Read more here.

Then there is Hollywood A-Listers and those relationships with a number of Russian oligarchs….those celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson, Kanye West, Mariah Carey, Leonardo Di Caprio and Brad Pitt.

There is nothing wrong with these international relationships…right? Well, that is to be determined given who is part of illicit activities globally and that does take some real research. You see, Putin exploits oligarchs for political and monetary reasons and locations across the world include the United States, Turkey, Greece and Britain.

Alex Finley, a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, explains how sanctions that target Russian assets in the West can have a direct impact on President Vladimir Putin’s personal wealth. Finley tells Yahoo News, “Putin holds very little money actually in his own name,” but adds that he maintains his fortune through funds taken out of Russia by oligarchs and stashed in offshore tax havens and companies with anonymous ownership structures.

Oligarchs hold investment interests in real estate, metals, mining, telecoms, and technology and soccer clubs. New York, Miami and London are favorite locations for international real estate and of course there are those that have concealed their identities by making acquisitions through LLCs or offshore trusts.

Only a documentary can put it all in context but Hollywood types hardly have the guts to produce such a piece and then there are the questions of our own Federal government actually sanctioning all those that should be for various reasons due to the devastating invasion/war against Ukraine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But there is a book, a real book that led to several countries adapting a new law called the Magnitsky Act…including the United States.

 

Ukrainian Hackers Take Aim at Russian Artillery, Navigation

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Primer: There are several global hacking groups taking on all things Russia and some have moved their targets to Belarus, now a nation state of Russia. The BBC reported recently the following in part:

The Anonymous hacktivist collective has been bombarding Russia with cyber-attacks since declaring “cyber war” on President Vladimir Putin in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine. Several people operating under its banner spoke to the BBC about their motives, tactics and plans.

Of all the cyber-attacks carried out since the Ukraine conflict started, an Anonymous hack on Russian TV networks stands out.

The hack was captured in a short video clip which shows normal programming interrupted with images of bombs exploding in Ukraine and soldiers talking about the horrors of the conflict.

The video began circulating on the 26 February and was shared by Anonymous social media accounts with millions of followers. “JUST IN: #Russian state TV channels have been hacked by #Anonymous to broadcast the truth about what happens in #Ukraine,” one post read.

It quickly racked up millions of views.

Prominent hackers target Russia's satellite infrastructure | CyberNews source

Additionally, the WSJ reports in part:

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian technology workers have taken part in cyberattacks against Russia’s government, media and financial institutions in recent days, a top Ukrainian cybersecurity official said Friday.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just over a week ago, Ukraine’s sprawling and fast-growing technology industry says it has sprung to action not only to keep working but also to support the country’s resistance by helping with cyberattacks against Russia.

The IT Army could number more than 400,000 people inside and outside the country, and it has done more than deface or take down Russian websites, said Viktor Zhora, deputy chief of Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communication and Information Protection, which is responsible for cybersecurity in the country.

Mr. Zhora said the IT Army, members of which have taken credit for temporarily knocking an array of Russian government and bank websites offline, has also helped their country by providing intelligence and attacking military systems. He also said the movement has attempted to circumvent Russian domestic censorship of news about the war by sending Russian individuals information and pictures about the war by phone, text and messaging app.

A group of Ukrainian hackers says it has found ways to disrupt Russian military units’ navigation and is working on ways to disrupt artillery fire as well.

The nearly two dozen volunteers of the CyberPan Ukraine group work with the Ukrainian military and get funds from sources in Israel and the United States, group members told Defense One.

In the weeks since Russia invaded Ukraine, one member said, the group has found ways to keep some field units from receiving signals from the GLONASS system, Russia’s version of the U.S. GPS satellite navigation constellation. Lost Russian forces are easier to find and target than ones that know where they are going.

Currently, the group is looking for ways to disrupt artillery fire, at least from systems that employ precision guidance systems. The member said the group has identified several computer servers linked to Russian rockets.

“We found many mistakes inside the system,” he said.

Poor communications tech has hobbled the Russian war effort. Its Era secure cellphones aren’t working, in part because the invading forces destroyed many of the system’s cell towers, Bellingcat investigator Cristo Grovez said on March 7. This has forced many Russian units to use unencrypted phones, whose calls have been picked up by Ukrainian forces, foreign journalists, and others.

Russia does have better communication equipment, like software-defined radios such as the R-187P1 Azart and R-168-5UN-2.

“The impression provided by the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the years has been that this equipment was widespread and that the majority of the Russian Armed Forces (RuAF) were operating digital radios and systems designed to facilitate planning and decision-making,” Sam Cranny-Evans and Thomas Withington wrote in a March 9 article for the Royal United Services Institute.” But that clearly isn’t the case, the authors note.

Meanwhile, Russian state media have reported that the government is investigating corruption allegations against some Russian makers of communications equipment. 

Some of the communications problems are likely due to poor preparation of the invasion force, said Samuel Bendett, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an adviser at the CNA Corporation.

“Some were not fully aware they were going into an actual war [but] thinking they were part of a military drill,” Bendett said. “Perhaps they did not fully combat-proof their comms equipment as a result, and that is how Ukrainians are able to intercept.”

Bendett also pointed out that the United States and other allies were training and equipping Ukraine, which has had years to prepare for this invasion.

“The Ukrainian military knows what technology the Russian military uses and this preparation gave them the opportunity to learn how to disrupt Russian comms,” he said.

Migrants from 4 Countries, including Russia, Arrive in the Florida Keys

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The makeshift fishing boat was actually flying a large American flag. It is unclear if the migrants were actually residents of Cuba, however the investigation continues. They are all presently in the custody of the Border Patrol with the assistance of the Coast Guard and the FBI. They were later loaded into a commercial truck for detention transport after some were in fact found at a beach cafe. Border Patrol says they will be deported.

cuban chug at beach.jpg source

 

MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — U.S. Border Patrol agents took 77 migrants into custody over the weekend in the Florida Keys, including several from former Soviet bloc countries, federal officials said Monday.

The Border Patrol said the groups were caught during seven separate landings, and that the migrants came from four different countries.

While most of the arrivals were from Cuba, a sports fishing yacht pulled into the shallow waters off Key West around 3:30 p.m. Sunday, unloading four people from Kazakhstan, nine people from Russia and two from Kyrgyzstan, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said on background.

Federal officials did not offer specifics of that incident Monday, except for releasing a statement that it was likely a human smuggling operation.

“Smugglers have no regard for the lives of migrants, and far too many lives are lost at sea as individuals take the dangerous journey in makeshift boats, rafts, and other vessels ill-equipped to handle the rough waters. The Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and local law enforcement patrol the waters, and individuals attempting to enter the United States by sea, without a lawful basis to enter, will be subject to removal.”

The landings come as the Border Patrol and Coast Guard are dealing with a surge in maritime migration from Cuba and Haiti to South Florida, numbers not seen in several years. The Keys and the island chain’s surrounding waters have been the migrants’ most frequent destination.

Last week, one man from Cuba was found dead in a migrant vessel that arrived with six survivors off Summerland Key in the Lower Keys.

The people on the boat said others in their group were missing at sea. The Coast Guard called off its search for those people over the weekend.

Russia a No-Show at the International Court of Justice

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We have heard that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into Putin and being a war criminal. Not only is it on full display for more than a week, but his war crimes go back to the conflict in Syria. At least 39 countries have sent referrals to the ICJ regarding Putin’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. The ICJ is expected to fast track the investigation. This could get messy as Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court and for that matter neither is the United States.

Putin has justified his invasion of Ukraine claiming genocide of Russian citizens as well as ongoing military hostilities. Yeesh.

Many don’t realize that many within Putin’s inner circle have not only turned on him, and have provided intelligence to the West including Ukraine to be able to take offensive measures especially in the matters of the assassination squads sent to kill the members of the Ukraine government including President Zelensky. Additionally, there are others within Putin’s orbit that have resigned and fled Russia for fear of prosecution which really means execution.

One of Putin’s lawyers, Alain Pellet resigned last week and described the reason to be the widely known fact that the Kremlin despises law…including international law. You can read his letter here.

The truth is, the ICJ should not begin or end with Putin as a war criminal, it should included the oligarchs and other Duma operatives that have enabled this war and the illegal activities associated with it including Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin.

Prigozhin is on the FBI’s most wanted list.

Prigozhin3.jpg

He has a long list of criminal charges against him including that troll factory that was located in St. Petersburg that interfered with the 2014 U.S. election process. He has ties to Indonesia and Qatar as well.

The UK is the first country to not only step up in cooperation with the ICJ but has a team that is working the critical task to preserve all evidence of war crimes including shelling location, types of missiles including cluster-bombs and the fact that Russia violated at least 2 cease fires after agreeing to humanitarian escape corridors in Ukraine.

(rather like a feeble Nuremberg trial)

So, what is the process of the International Criminal Court you ask? In part:

The court has 123 member states, but neither Russia nor Ukraine is a party. However, back in 2015 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, Ukraine referred the conflict to the court for investigation. And there’s a provision in the Rome Statute — article 12.3 — which allows states that are not members of the court to refer a conflict and allegations of crimes to the court. But an investigation has to be triggered, and one way for that to happen is if one of the 123 member states asks the court to investigate. And it was just announced Thursday night that 39 states referred the Ukraine situation to the International Criminal Court for investigation. So, the prosecutor of that court announced that he is immediately opening up an investigation and will start collecting evidence. That investigation is also open into past crimes that could have occurred in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Why is it important for the court to begin investigating now, rather than waiting for the conflict to end?

Investigations and prosecutions are important even before cases are brought before the court because they bring attention to the crimes that are being committed, and to the victims of these of these crimes. So, even aside from what happens in court down the road, the act of investigating and framing what is happening and naming it is extremely important.

What types of crimes can the International Criminal Court investigate?

The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over four types of crime: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. And there is no doubt that this is an act of aggression by Russia against Ukraine. However, the crime of aggression has a particular requirement, which is different from all the other crimes. It can only be prosecuted by the court if one member state commits an act of aggression against another. Since neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member, the crime of aggression here does not apply. So, the International Criminal Court is focusing on war crimes, and it will also consider crimes against humanity if they arise.

There is also an International Court of Justice. What role does it play?

The International Criminal Court investigates and prosecutes international crimes committed by individuals. The International Court of Justice resolves disputes between states. Ukraine has brought an emergency case before that court, which will be heard next week. The focus of Ukraine’s complaint is that Russia has used as one of its justifications — I’ll say, phony justification — for invading Ukraine the allegation that there is a threat of genocide against Russian nationals living in Ukraine. Ukraine says this is nonsense. The ICJ should rule that there is no such threat and that assertion cannot be used as a justification for the invasion.

Any real hope for justice on this? Not really.

Texas Allowed to use Abandoned Border Wall Material to Build the Border Wall

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Some of them actually…

After the Biden administration halted the construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall, hundreds of unused wall panels were left at construction sites.

Now 1,700 unused panels — declared surplus property by the federal government — have been shipped from California to help build Gov. Greg Abbott’s state-funded wall, according to spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Texas Facilities Commission.

The Biden administration halted virtually all work on the federal wall in January 2021. Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, which had been in charge of awarding some of the federal wall contracts under Trump, said the 32-foot-tall steel bollard panels were at a storage site in San Diego.

The Texas Facilities Commission, the state office in charge of Texas border wall construction, applied in November to receive the surplus panels through the federal government’s General Service Administration, a program that allows nonprofit organizations and state and local governments to receive property the federal government no longer needs.

A welder straightens out a post in a new section of border wall that is being constructed near Eagle Pass on Nov. 20, 2021.  A welder worked last November on a new section of border wall near Eagle Pass. Credit: Nick Wagner for The Texas Tribune

Francoise Luca, a spokesperson for the Facilities Commission, said the state didn’t have to disclose to the federal government that it planned to use the panels for Texas’ border wall project, adding that the state followed the surplus program’s rules.

In December, the Facilities Commission hired New York-based Posillico Civil Inc. to haul the panels from San Diego to Eagle Pass at a cost of $2 million, according to the contract awarded to the engineering firm. The company finished the job earlier this month.

Luca said the panels are being stored in “a temporary and secured area” in Maverick County under the watch of the Texas National Guard.

With the 1,700 donated panels, the state can erect roughly 1.3 miles of border barrier. Luca said the panels “will be used in the near term” but didn’t say where on the Texas-Mexico border they will be used.

Scott Nicol, a McAllen-based environmental activist, said Biden has broken his pledge not to use taxpayer money to build a wall, pointing to one project in the Rio Grande Valley where crews erected 15-foot concrete panels near the border that the federal government calls levees.

And now “the Biden administration is saying, ‘We won’t build these border walls, but if Abbott wants to build them, we will give him free bollards,’” he said. “The problem with border walls isn’t who is building them, it is the devastation that comes when they are built.”

Nicol said regardless of who is building border barriers, the wall will block the movement of endangered species like ocelots and could cause dangerous flooding.

In June 2021, five months after Biden took office, Abbott announced that the state would build its own wall along the Texas-Mexico border, funding it with state money and private donations. The state has $1.05 billion dedicated to the project — which includes $55 million in private donations as of Feb. 11.

Eight months into the effort, the state has completed 1 mile of barrier in Rio Grande City in Starr County. The Texas General Land Office owned the land, and the Texas Facilities Commission paid $125,000 for it.

In November, the Facilities Commission awarded a $162 million contract to Posillico Civil to build 8 miles of border barrier, including the Starr County section that the Facilities Commission said will total 1.7 miles and cost $34.5 million.

That’s just over $20 million a mile. By comparison, border wall construction under the Trump administration ranged from $6 million to $34 million per mile, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.

The state has said some border residents have offered to donate land to have barriers built on their property. But the state has refused to release the names of those private landowners or the location of those properties, saying that if those details were made public, the properties could be targeted by criminals and owners could drive up the land prices and hurt the Facilities Commission’s negotiations — an indication that the state is also looking to purchase property, although that option hasn’t been publicly discussed.