http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...-russian-troops-in-ukraine/?intcmp=latestnews State Department cites photo 'evidence' purportedly showing Russian troops in Ukraine The State Department is vouching for photographic "evidence" that purports to show Russian special forces in eastern Ukraine, despite Vladimir Putin's claims that his operatives are not behind the unrest. Ukraine's government has been circulating images over the last several days to international organizations, claiming they show "Russian sabotage-reconnaissance groups" at work in two eastern Ukrainian towns. Their authenticity could not be independently verified, but State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Monday they help bolster claims of ties between Russia and armed militants in eastern Ukraine. "So these are just further evidence of the connection between Russia and the armed militants," she said. Psaki repeatedly described the images that way when pressed for more information at Monday's press briefing. She said they show "individuals who visibly appear to be tied to Russia." The photos were circulating on the heels of a diplomatic agreement in Geneva meant to ease tensions in Ukraine's eastern region. Following a deadly shooting on Sunday, the White House would not say Monday when pro-Russian militants must lay down their arms. The images, and the captions, purport to show a select group of militants photographed during earlier pro-Russian operations, and again during operations in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, in eastern Ukraine. One set shows a bearded man in a military cap in several settings. The captions claim one image was taken in Georgia in 2008, and two others were taken in Kramatorsk and Sloviansk this year. They appear to show the same person. The document labels him as a "soldier of the Russian Special Forces." Another set purports to show another militant in eastern Ukraine, and in a "family photo" of a Russian forces group. The photos were included in a letter sent by Ihor Prokopchuk, Ukraine's permanent representative to the International Organizations in Vienna, to delegations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The New York Times initially reported on these photographs, saying they show militants in eastern Ukraine equipped in the "same fashion" as Russian forces. Putin, though, has denied his forces are in eastern Ukraine.
If the US keeps putting pressure on Russia, hurting their economy, etc... What do you guys think about the threat of Russian Terrorists here in the US? Do you think this is a risk we should be concerned about?
**** is getting real American Journalist Detained in Eastern Ukraine An American journalist is being held by unidentified local authorities in eastern Ukraine, NBC News has confirmed. Simon Ostrovsky, a reporter and producer for Vice News, was detained with five other journalists Monday night in the city of Slaviansk. The five others were released. No other details are available about Ostrovsky's detention or condition. A Vice spokesman said in a statement to NBC News: "VICE is aware of the situation and is in contact with the United States State Department and other appropriate government authorities to secure the safety and security of our friend and colleague, Simon Ostrovsky." “We of course condemn the taking of hostages,” State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said Tuesday. “I don't have any additional information on this reported individual," Psaki said of Ostrovsky. The self-declared separatist mayor of Slaviansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, said at a news conference that his men were holding an American journalist, but did not name Ostrovsky, according to Reuters. Ostrovsky has been in Ukraine throughout the crisis, reporting extensively on Crimea's breakaway and its annexation by Russia. He told MSNBC last week that events in the eastern part of the country mirror those that occurred in Crimea. "A lot of the same things seem to be happening," Ostrovsky said on MSNBC's "All In With Chris Hayes." "The next step seems like it might be exactly what happened in Crimea." Ostrovsky told Huffington Post in an interview last month that he has encountered overwhelming hostility in trying to report from the region. “I think it’s because of the propaganda that Russia is broadcasting over the television networks 24/7, brainwashing the people out here into thinking that the entire world has come out against Russia,” he said in a phone interview from the Crimea regional capital of Simferopol. http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/ukraine-crisis/american-journalist-detained-eastern-ukraine-n86816
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/o8_Rl0pbkUk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Alleged Russian troop movement in Ukraine.
Putin will keep pushing forward until the US, and to a lesser extent Europe, does something to stop him. He knows Obama's too nutless to do anything.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>JOHN KERRY FINNA BRING THA RUCKUS TO RUSSIA CUZ GENEVA SANCTIONS AINT NUTHIN TA **** WITH</p>— Wu-Tang Financial (@Wu_Tang_Finance) <a href="https://twitter.com/Wu_Tang_Finance/statuses/459462867972931584">April 24, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Obama is destroying Russia with Intelligence over Muscle. Russia stock now one level above junk status: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27159423 Russia's credit rating downgraded by S&P Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's has cut Russia's rating to one notch above "junk" status. The move comes as foreign investors continue to take money out of the country amid tensions over the situation in Ukraine. S&P downgraded Russia's rating to 'BBB-' from 'BBB'. Also on Friday, Russia's central bank raised its key interest rate from 7% to 7.5% as it sought to defend the value of the rouble. Announcing the downgrade, S&P said: "In our view, the tense geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine could see additional significant outflows of both foreign and domestic capital from the Russian economy." The agency said this could "further undermine already weakening growth prospects".
I'm now convinced that this is what Russia ultimately wants. 'World War Three' Ukraine has launched military raids to regain the buildings occupied by separatists in several eastern towns. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described the raids as a "bloody crime". Natalia Antelava investigates who entered Mariupol's city council building On Friday acting Ukrainian Defence Minister Mikhail Koval said Russian forces had come within a kilometre of the border. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk accused Russia of wanting to "start World War Three" by occupying Ukraine "militarily and politically" and by creating a conflict that would spread to the rest of Europe. On Thursday raids by Ukrainian commandos on pro-Russian checkpoints around the town of Sloviansk left at least two separatists dead. There have also been reports from the port city of Odessa indicating that an explosion at a checkpoint injured at least seven people. Unrest began in Ukraine last November over whether the country should look towards Moscow or the West. Last month, Russia annexed Ukraine's mainly ethnic-Russian Crimea. This followed a referendum in the region that backed joining the Russian Federation but which the West and Kiev deemed illegal. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27162941
It's getting uglier and uglier by the minute. This is not going to end well my friends. Russia is on a mission and these "pro Russian separatists" are simply elite Russian military. The sad thing is that Russia has their people believing they are simply doing this to "protect russian speaking citizens of Ukraine". If that is your only goal, then send in groups to stabilize it, not annex their land. Everyone knows what Russia's motivations are and it doesn't appear that they are going to stop. War is inevitable. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27162941 International monitors seized' in Sloviansk Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine have seized a bus carrying international military observers, Ukraine's interior ministry says. Negotiations were under way to secure the release of the observers, seized near the town of Sloviansk, it added. Western leaders earlier announced they were debating fresh sanctions against Russia over its alleged failure to help de-escalate the crisis in Ukraine. Russia has accused the West of wanting to "seize" Ukraine. Moscow has tens of thousands of troops stationed along its side of the border with Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists have been occupying key buildings in a dozen eastern towns, defying the central government in Kiev.
We have a madman on our hands, folks. Exclusive: Putin Halts All Talks With White House As new U.S. sanctions against Russia loom, the Kremlin has shut down intensive high level communications between top U.S. and Russian officials. Since the invasion of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have had regular phone calls in an often half-hearted attempt to deescalate the ongoing crisis inside Ukraine. But as the U.S. and EU prepare to unveil new sanctions against Russia, Putin has decided the interactions should stop. The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. The move signals an end to the diplomacy, for now. “Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure,” said Igor Yurgens, Chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Development, a prominent Moscow think tank, and a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “It does not mean forever.” Obama and Putin last spoke over the phone on April 14, a call that the White House said was initiated at Moscow’s request. Obama urged Putin in the call to end Kremlin support for armed, pro-Russian activists creating unrest in eastern Ukraine. Obama also warned that the U.S. would impose more “costs” on Russia if Putin continued his current course. According to the Kremlin’s readout of the call, Putin denied Russian interference in eastern Ukraine and said “that such speculations are based on inaccurate information.” Obama and Putin have spoken to each other about Ukraine regularly over the past weeks, including calls on March 28, March 16, and March 6. But that these calls are now on hold for the indefinite future, due to their lack of progress and frustration on both sides. On Friday, Kerry warned that new round of American financial assaults on Russia were on the way. “We are putting in more sanctions, they will probably come Monday at the latest,” he said in a private meeting in Washington, according to an attendee. Russian businesses and individuals close to Putin would be on the sanctions list, he added. Diplomatic sources close to the process confirmed that Putin is not interested in speaking with Obama again in the current environment. The two leaders might talk again in the future but neither side is reaching out for direct interaction, as they had been doing since the Ukraine crisis began. The failure of the agreement struck last week in Geneva between the contact group of the U.S., EU, Russia, and Ukraine has made further direct Washington-Moscow interactions moot. Other top U.S. officials are also now out of direct contact with their Russian interlocutors. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is also getting the cold shoulder from his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu. Pentagon officials have reached out to Russia on Mr. Hagel’s behalf within the past 24 hours but have not gotten any response, according to Pentagon Spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren. That leaves the channel between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as the only semi-functioning high-level diplomatic channel between Washington and Moscow. But even that often-frosty relationship has further chilled as the two sides hurled insults and accusations this week. After speaking over the phone Monday and then again Tuesday about the now defunct Geneva agreement on Ukraine, Kerry and Lavrov are now conducting diplomacy through the press—and leveling harsh and undiplomatic charges against one another. Kerry appeared at the State Department press room Thursday afternoon to declare publicly that Russia was not keeping its word. “For seven days, Russia has refused to take a single concrete step in the right direction,” Kerry scolded. “Not a single Russian official, not one, has publicly gone on television in Ukraine and called on the separatists to support the Geneva agreement, to support the stand-down, to give up their weapons, and get out of the Ukrainian buildings. They have not called on them to engage in that activity. “ Kerry also lashed out at Russia Today, the Kremlin-sponsored television network, which Kerry said spends all its time “to propagandize and to distort what is happening or not happening in Ukraine.” “Instead, in plain sight, Russia continues to fund, coordinate, and fuel a heavily armed separatist movement in Donetsk,” Kerry accused. Lavrov publicly responded, “The U.S. is trying to pervert everything that is going on in Ukraine.” On Friday, Kerry summed up his recent interactions with his Russian counterpart, “I’ve had 6 conversations with Lavrov in the last few weeks. The last one was Kafka-esque... It was bizarre.” http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl.../articles+(The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles)
Wow. Putin says Internet is a CIA project President warns Russians against making Google searches saying its web traffic goes through servers that are in the US. Vladimir Putin, the Russia's president, has called the Internet a "CIA project" and warned Russians against making Google searches. Speaking to a group of young journalists during a televised event on Thursday, Putin said the Internet was developed by the US as a "special project" by the Central Intelligence Agency. When asked about Google, the Russian leader said the company's web traffic "goes through servers that are in the States", adding "everything is monitored there", the AFP news agency reported. Shares in Russia's biggest search engine, Yandex, fell as Putin expressed concern about its overseas investors, reiterating his fear of foreign control of the Internet. "We must fight determinedly for our own interests. This process is happening. And we will support it from the government side, of course" he said. The Kremlin has been anxious to exert greater control over the Internet, which opposition activists, who are barred from national television, have used to promote their ideas and organise protests, the AP news agency reported. Russia's parliament passed a law earlier this week requiring social media websites to keep their servers in Russia and save all information about their users for six months. Another new law allowed the government to block blacklisted sites without a court order, and businessmen close to the Russian president now control the country's leading social media network, VKontakte. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny had his popular blog blocked and a widely read news site that covered opposition causes sacked its long-term editor and changed its stance after a warning on extremism from the state watchdog. Putin has frequently been scathing about the Internet, which he once described as "half p*rnography". http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europ...10.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Well Darpa was involved in the creation of the internet so it does have a ring of truth to it. Also: the pictures above of the supposed Russian troops have already been debunked and then retracted by NYT.
Correct, there is some truth that the CIA originally created the Internet, but what it has become today is not a CIA invention - and we all know WHY Putin is saying this... so that his people don't use the Internet to find information. He wants them to continue getting their news from Russia Today - aka Propaganda. Otherwise there is a good chance of a revolution in Russia.
Pentagon says Russian jets violated airspace The US says Russian military aircraft have entered Ukrainian airspace several times in the past 24 hours, amid rising tension in the east of the country. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC late on Friday that the incidents had happened mainly near the border with Russia, but gave no further details. Earlier, pro-Russian separatists seized a bus carrying international military observers, Ukrainian officials said. Talks were under way to secure their release near the town of Sloviansk. Russia has tens of thousands of troops deployed along its side of the border with Ukraine as pro-Moscow separatists continue to occupy official buildings in a dozen eastern towns, defying the government in Kiev. The US and the EU appear to have moved closer to imposing further sanctions on Russia after a day of conference calls between Western leaders. Reports say the sanctions would target individuals and entities. Under current US and EU measures, assets freezes and travel bans have targeted a number of Russian officials. 'Dangerously destabilising' Russia has accused the West of wanting to "seize" Ukraine. In a statement from the Pentagon, Col Steven Warren repeated US calls to take "immediate steps to de-escalate the situation". He said the US had told Russian officials that US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel wanted to speak to his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, but there had been no response so far. Mr Hagel described Russian activity along the Ukrainian border as "dangerously destabilising" and "very provocative". http://www.bbc.com/news/27167187
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>BREAKING: G7 leaders agree to 'move swiftly' to impose additional sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.</p>— The Associated Press (@AP) <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/statuses/459875052146917376">April 26, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Putin is apparently worth 40-70 Billion. http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/2...h-for-secret-putin-fortune.html?from=homepage Sanctions Revive Search for Secret Putin Fortune WASHINGTON — When the Obama administration imposed sanctions on individual Russians last month in response to Moscow’s armed intervention in Ukraine, one of the targets was a longtime part-owner of a commodities trading company called the Gunvor Group. His name, Gennady N. Timchenko, meant little to most Americans, but buried in the Treasury Department announcement were a dozen words that President Obama and his team knew would not escape the attention of Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. “Putin,” the statement said, “has investments in Gunvor and may have access to Gunvor funds.” For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history. For all the rumors and speculation, though, there has been little if any hard evidence, and Gunvor has adamantly denied any financial ties to Mr. Putin and repeated that denial on Friday. But Mr. Obama’s response to the Ukraine crisis, while derided by critics as slow and weak, has reinvigorated a 15-year global hunt for Mr. Putin’s hidden wealth. Now, as the Obama administration prepares to announce another round of sanctions as early as Monday targeting Russians it considers part of Mr. Putin’s financial circle, it is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money, and that he could ultimately be targeted directly or indirectly. “It’s something that could be done that would send a very clear signal of taking the gloves off and not just dance around it,” said Juan C. Zarate, a White House counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush who helped pioneer the government’s modern financial campaign techniques to choke off terrorist money. So far, the American government has not imposed sanctions on Mr. Putin himself, and officials said they would not in the short term, reasoning that personally targeting a head of state would amount to a “nuclear” escalation, as several put it. But officials said they hoped to get Mr. Putin’s attention by targeting figures close to him like Mr. Timchenko, and other business magnates like Yuri V. Kovalchuk, Vladimir I. Yakunin and Arkady and Boris Rotenberg. Among those likely to be on Monday’s list, officials said, are Igor Sechin, president of the Rosneft state oil company, and Aleksei Miller, head of the Gazprom state energy giant. “It’s like standing in a circle and all of a sudden everyone in the circle is getting a bomb thrown on them, and you get the message that it’s getting close,” said Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, describing at a recent hearing the way the sanctions are getting closer to Mr. Putin. Putin’s Denials Mr. Putin’s reported income for 2013 was just $102,000, according to a Kremlin statement this month. Over the years, he has crudely dismissed suggestions of personal wealth. “I have seen some papers about this,” he said at a news conference in 2008. “Just gossip that’s not worth discussing. It’s simply rubbish. They picked everything out of someone’s nose and smeared it on their little papers.” How much Mr. Putin cares about money has long been a subject of debate both in Russia and in the West. On government payrolls since his days in the K.G.B., the Soviet intelligence agency, Mr. Putin to many seemed driven more by power and nationalism than by material gain. With access to government perks like palaces, planes and luxury cars, he seemingly has little need for personal wealth. “If he really does have all that money salted away somewhere, why?” asked Bruce K. Misamore, who was the chief financial officer of Yukos Oil before the Russian government imprisoned its top shareholder, Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, seized its assets and gave many of them to Mr. Sechin’s Rosneft. “What good does it do him? Is it just ego? Presumably, it’s not to pass it down to heirs. I doubt we’ll see Mr. Putin becoming one of the leading philanthropists in the world.” And yet, some have drawn attention to what appear to be expensive watches on his wrist and the construction of a seaside palace that the Kremlin denied was being built for Mr. Putin. Some argue that Mr. Putin may want money, or the appearance of it, because it is the measure of stature and power in a society whose transition to capitalism has produced instant billionaires out of the wreckage of Communism. “I came to the conclusion after time that some of these reports may be seeded by people around Putin himself,” said Fiona Hill, who was the chief Russia expert at the National Intelligence Council and last year co-wrote a book about Mr. Putin. “Russians have to have the biggest and the best. It’s part of the mystique, part of the image.” The Treasury Department has not provided evidence to back up its statement about Mr. Putin, but standard policy requires it to have enough verification to withstand a court challenge. Gunvor, a Swiss-based firm that is the world’s fourth-largest oil trader and generated $91 billion in revenue last year, said it had subsequently provided documents to the Treasury Department that it said disproved any connection to Mr. Putin. Some Obama administration officials have argued for releasing details of what the United States knows about Mr. Putin’s wealth to expose him to the Russian public, a suggestion so far resisted by the White House. Some lawmakers in Congress are discussing legislation to require the administration to publish an estimate of Mr. Putin’s overall worth. American diplomatic cables obtained by the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks show sustained attention to the subject. The cables tied Mr. Putin not only to Gunvor but also to Surgutneftegaz, a large oil company, and even to Gazprom, but they used words like “rumored.” In one cable, for instance, diplomats cited a General Electric executive working in the region who privately said that Mr. Yakunin, the president of the state-owned Russian Railways, “has made sizable cash payments to Putin” and estimated that the Russian leader was worth “well over $10 billion.” The C.I.A. in 2007 produced a secret assessment of Mr. Putin’s wealth that has never been released, according to officials who have read it. The assessment, the officials said, largely tracked with assertions later made publicly by a Russian political analyst who said Mr. Putin effectively controlled holdings in Gunvor, Gazprom and Surgutneftegaz that added up to about $40 billion at the time. Trailed by Suspicion From the start of his political career, Mr. Putin has been dogged by suspicion. While he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg in the 1990s, his office signed deals giving favored companies licenses to export $92 million in oil, timber, metal and other products in exchange for an equal amount of imported food. But the food never materialized. Mr. Putin was not accused of personally benefiting, but a City Council committee led by Marina Salye recommended Mr. Putin’s dismissal for “incompetence” and “unprecedented negligence and irresponsibility.” She also pushed for prosecutors to investigate. Mr. Putin blamed the companies involved and was spared by the mayor, Anatoly A. Sobchak, his political patron. Still, it was not clear whether Mr. Putin in that era coveted money for himself or was more interested in deciding how it would be distributed as state assets were gobbled up by newly minted capitalists. Boris A. Berezovsky, the tycoon who helped install Mr. Putin in the Kremlin only to fall out with him and become his most bitter opponent, told a story of seeking and receiving Mr. Putin’s help with a business venture in St. Petersburg and then offering him a bribe in thanks, only to be turned down. For the United States, seeking intelligence on Russia became a lower priority after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But Washington got a rare look into the world of money and the Kremlin after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Charles A. Duelfer, the weapons inspector, uncovered a web of lucrative Iraqi oil vouchers given to close Putin associates, including his chief of staff and the presidential office itself, in hope of eroding support for international sanctions. In a later book, Mr. Duelfer wrote that Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, objected to mentioning Mr. Putin for diplomatic reasons. By listing a Russian state company under Mr. Putin’s control, Mr. Powell said, “you are implicating Putin.” Mr. Duelfer said he reluctantly took Mr. Putin’s name out of the report. Mr. Powell said last week that he did not recall the episode. In 2006, Mr. Bush kicked off an initiative targeting corrupt foreign leaders. Over the next year, his administration focused attention on learning more about the finances of leaders in the former Soviet Union, like Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus. The 2007 C.I.A. assessment grew out of that. But different officials came away with different impressions of its reliability. Some said they considered it a reasonable appraisal of Mr. Putin’s worth based on solid reporting. Others said they considered it to be built largely on speculation and unsubstantiated talk. Either way, the assessment roughly mirrored estimates made publicly at the end of that year by Stanislav Belkovsky, a Russian political analyst with ties to the Kremlin whose public attack on oligarchs several years earlier had presaged the arrest and prosecution of Mr. Khodorkovsky of Yukos. Mr. Belkovsky told European newspapers in December 2007 that Mr. Putin had amassed a fortune of “at least” $40 billion through sizable shares of some of Russia’s largest energy companies. Mr. Putin secretly controlled “at least 75 percent” of Gunvor, 4.5 percent of Gazprom and 37 percent of Surgutneftegaz, Mr. Belkovsky said, citing only unnamed Kremlin insiders. “The reality is that Putin has others and entities to move money that he controls or that he might control ultimately,” said Mr. Zarate, the former Bush adviser. “The challenge with him is you don’t have an easy way of drawing the line to the assets he actually owns and controls currently. There’s a dimension of layering and relationships with people with whom he’s close and entities that serve as conduits that make it tricky to determine what is Putin’s and what is not.” Efforts to Open Curtain In the years since, others have taken a look at Mr. Putin’s finances. The magazine The Economist linked Mr. Putin to Mr. Timchenko in 2008. Mr. Timchenko sued but later dropped the case, and The Economist issued a statement. “We accept Gunvor’s assurances that neither Vladimir Putin nor any other senior Russian political figures have any ownership in Gunvor,” the magazine said. In 2010, Sergei Kolesnikov, a businessman, published an open letter saying he had helped Mr. Putin secretly build a billion-dollar palace on the Black Sea. The Kremlin dismissed his claims as “absurd.” In 2012, Boris Y. Nemtsov, an opposition leader, released a report detailing the presidential perks at Mr. Putin’s disposal, including 20 residences, 15 helicopters, four yachts and 43 aircraft. But some hunting for Mr. Putin’s private wealth have found obstacles. Last month, Cambridge University Press declined to publish a book by its longtime author Karen Dawisha, a Miami University professor, exploring how Mr. Putin built “a kleptocratic and authoritarian regime in Russia.” The publisher wrote her saying it had “no reason to doubt the veracity” of her book, but deemed the risk of a lawsuit too high, according to letters published by The Economist. In a return letter, Ms. Dawisha called the decision “pre-emptive book burning.” All of which makes the Treasury Department’s assertions last month so striking. In addition to targeting Mr. Timchenko, one of the founders of Gunvor, the department froze any American assets of Mr. Kovalchuk and his Bank Rossiya. It described Rossiya as “the personal bank for senior officials,” and described Mr. Kovalchuk as one of Mr. Putin’s “cashiers.” Mr. Timchenko denied the assertions and sold his 43 percent share in Gunvor to his partner, Torbjorn Tornqvist, the day before the sanctions were issued to avoid repercussions to the firm. The sale contract has no conditions or provisions for buying the shares back, and Mr. Tornqvist now holds 87 percent of the company, while senior employees own the rest, the company said. Seth Thomas Pietras, Gunvor’s corporate affairs director, said Mr. Putin “does not and never has had any ownership, direct, indirect or otherwise, in Gunvor,” nor is he “a beneficiary of Gunvor,” and “he has no access to Gunvor’s funds.” After the sanctions statement, Gunvor executives flew to Washington to meet with State Department officials and congressional aides. “We’re providing evidence but have not seen any sort of evidence from them yet and don’t know if we ever will,” Mr. Pietras said. He said the company’s banking partners had been satisfied by its explanations. The Treasury Department, however, was not. “We remain confident that the information on the relationship between Putin and Gunvor is accurate,” said a Treasury official, who asked not to be identified in a public dispute with the company. Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess master turned opposition leader, said Mr. Putin’s wealth must be so buried that it would be difficult to prove within the standards typically required by American lawyers. “I’m sure it’s reachable, but you might have to break some of the rules to reach it,” he said. The sanctions issued so far, he said, have not made enough of an impression. “They have to convince Putin that it will be serious,” he said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Two helicopters down, Ukraine claims it's fighting “highly skilled foreign military men” in Slavyansk: <a href="http://t.co/iIew1gA3sP">http://t.co/iIew1gA3sP</a></p>— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) <a href="https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/statuses/462149280246296576">May 2, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Kremlin says <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Ukraine&src=hash">#Ukraine</a> assault on Slavyansk rebels was raid against 'peaceful settlements' (but which somehow shot down 2 choppers)</p>— Marc Burleigh (@marcburleigh) <a href="https://twitter.com/marcburleigh/statuses/462150046868602880">May 2, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Kremlin officials quoted saying <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Ukraine&src=hash">#Ukraine</a>’s military assault today in the east means Geneva deal is dead.</p>— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) <a href="https://twitter.com/W7VOA/statuses/462150813155356672">May 2, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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