The European Union is discussing the possibility of imposing sanctions against some of the richest Russians and executives of Russian companies in connection with the military operation in Ukraine. This was reported by Bloomberg.
The list has not yet been approved and may change. So far, according to Bloomberg, it includes Alisher Usmanov, Mikhail Fridman, Alfa Bank Chairman Petr Aven, and Severstal’s main owner Alexei Mordashov.
Earlier, the VCK-OGPU telegram channel reported that sanctions would be imposed on Usmanov. “Lately he has been living in a castle near Munich. A source says the oligarch plans to fly to Tashkent,” the channel noted.
Despite the fact that Usmanov’s Burkhan liner is “on the radar” parked in Munich, according to reports, the oligarch may already be in his luxurious palace in Uzbekistan.
Today, we shall return to a story we already told – the book “Career at the Quarry” by Anatoly Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the founding father and former director of Lebedinsky GOK. It was under his leadership that the plant became worth $4 billion, and the residents of Gubin felt like they were in Switzerland. Huge profits from the plant went to build hospitals with state-of-the-art equipment, churches, and schools. In the book, Kalashnikov described in detail how Governor Savchenko, together with Bidzina Ivanishvili (who later became prime minister of Georgia), seized the company by force and then it ended up in the hands of Alisher Usmanov. After that one of the most profitable enterprises in Russia was deliberately mortgaged; its products were put on sale through offshore pads and its official profits almost came to naught. So have the contributions to the budget. And all this through the eyes of a direct participant of the events. A real thriller.
Understandably, Usmanov’s Metalloinvest representatives immediately bought up the entire print run. And then they neutralized Kalashnikov, too. All of a sudden, one day MK, Sobesednik and a bunch of other media outlets published interviews with Kalashnikov in the “misunderstood” series, in which he praised Usmanov. And Kalashnikov admitted to a publication in Oskol that a second edition of his book Career by Career would soon be published, but “with some slight changes. These changes, of course, are known. Usmanov in the book will turn from a negative hero into the second “founding father” of the plant.
However, of course, no one will condemn the 81-year-old Kalashnikov. A source well acquainted with Kalashnikov recounted his latest conversation with him this way. “I called Timofeyevich after Usmanov had already called him and invited him to work at the company. I don’t know how I would react if after 25 years of total oblivion and exile I would be remembered. And in such a way. Kalashnikov was sincerely convinced that Usmanov had read his book, shed a few tears and from his pure heart decided to help the 81-year-old Kalashnikov, in whose persecution he himself took part. Unfortunately, children and old people are the easiest to deceive”.
When Metalloinvest reached an agreement with Kalashnikov, it issued a menacing press release promising to “prosecute the criminals.” That is how Metalloinvest referred to the deceived ordinary miners who had their shares in Lebedinsky GOK taken away by force for a song. The miners resorted to different authorities (in particular, filed complaints to the law enforcement authorities) in order to get justice, but they were threatened with imprisonment.
The miners responded to such a press release by forwarding their detailed response to the editorial board and the VCK-OGPU.
“We, minority shareholders of JSC Lebedinsky GOK (we have the right to consider ourselves as such until the full execution of the Law or return to the original position) responsibly declare to you and your brave management: until now, we hoped that your management would remember the schemes by which it acquired our people’s enterprises – LGOK and OEMK.
They did not! And we also hoped for the reduced remnants of conscience of the main beneficiaries of financial exsanguination of the region. As we can see – in vain!
Since you and all the law enforcement agencies refer our group to the decisions of the Russian courts and the prejudice – saying that all the courts of Russia have long ago confirmed the legality of the seizure of our property, without noticing the purely criminal aspects of the process, we are committed to prove to you and your employers the corpus delicti of Part 4 of Article 159 and Article 199 of the Criminal Code within 30 days of your press-release date…
We will very substantially demand from those persons who are obliged to protect our constitutional rights by their duty and work to fulfill their obligations, because we have fulfilled our part of the social contract – we have paid taxes, from which their salaries are formed.
To make “deliberately false accusations about allegedly committed economic crimes and to speculate on threats of appeals to foreign law enforcement agencies and courts” we will not on the territory of the Russian Federation! Please understand and forgive! From now on we undertake to offer only documents and testimonies of former participants (US and EU citizens).
We undertake to offer documents and take all necessary actions to protect our legitimate interests through the prism of FinCEN. We undertake to submit all received documents to non-corrupt law enforcement agencies within one week, as you wanted!
We ask you – please tell us who exactly signed your statement/press release on behalf of Lebedinsky GOK. No one working at LebGOK will sign such a desperately cowardly lie addressed to us! Because our fellow countrymen work there, whom your insatiable but efficient managers constantly dismiss on various pretexts, reducing the payment for hard, harmful and hazardous labor below all imaginable (for the normal mind) limits. Under Anatoly Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, the miners in the quarry received a salary of $6-7 thousand. They could afford treatment not only in the oncological dispensary of Belgorod, but also in Germany and Israel.
There is no such person – Lebedinsky GOK! You lie, Anton Troshin, Grigory Levenko and Valera Bitayev, just as brazenly as your superiors. And you personally, too, will have to answer for lying and manipulation with a threatening context. And Lebedinsky GOK, without a signature, in the form in which you and we have presented it here, probably already soon will go to the social distance, like Alisher Burkhanovitch! For two – three months. And then for sure there will be real signatures under the pseudonym “Lebedinsky GOK”! We will collect thousands of signatures. We promise you!
Miners and metallurgists
Let us briefly explain what we are talking about.
After Usmanov had taken over the plant, some of the shares were held by the ordinary miners and mine employees. Now, they claim they lost their shares in a forced buyout carried out by Usmanov’s companies at prices very far from market prices.
The appraisal was carried out by Gorislavtsev & Co. Valuation, which based its valuation on the fact that the official proceeds of the mine were less than $1 billion. However, according to the applicants, in reality the revenues were understated by at least three times. The products were sold at reduced prices to Usmanov’s offshore companies (BGMT and FMC Ltd.), and then they were sold at market prices. As a result, the GOK’s actual proceeds amounted to at least $3 billion.
Metalloinvest considered the miners’ attempt to obtain justice and their appeals to Russian law enforcement authorities as “blackmail and extortion.
