Economic security

Russia's Offshore Bandits: Hypocrisy Laid Bare by Panama Revelations

It's been a big month for news about links between Kremlin insiders and the West.

First came the U.S. announcement that Mikhail Lesin, architect of Russia Today, now RT, and former head of Gazprom Media, had died in Washington from blunt force injuries to the head.

Then came the Sunday Times' revelation that Andrei Yakunin, son of anti-Western ideologue and former-Russian Railways head Vladimir, had another London mansion, far larger than the one we already knew about. While Vladimir Yakunin was parading the belt of the Virgin Mary around Russia, and instructing Russians to avoid contact with the West, his own son was quietly taking British citizenship and his grandson was attending an elite British private school.

Finally, of course came the Panama Papers, with their revelations about the corporate structures controlled by Dmitry Peskov's wife, Nikolai Patrushev's nephew and, of course, the godfather of Vladimir Putin's daughter. While ordinary Russians were being instructed to tighten their belts in the ideological battle with the West, their rulers were employing Mossack Fonseca to infiltrate their money into enemy territory.