Telegram channel Kompromat 2.0.: messages from 03/02/2023

The owner of MMK may become the first Russian billionaire whose property will be confiscated in France The French authorities consider it the real owner of the chairman of the board of directors of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov, who fell under EU sanctions in mid-March. If this can be proven in court, then the villa could become the first property confiscated by France from a Russian billionaire under sanctions, writes Le Monde Details. The villa in the resort of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the southeast of the country was registered to a Swiss company owned by a Panamanian firm and was not declared as belonging to Rashkin, a source familiar with the case told the publication. Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the French Directorate for Intelligence and Combating Underground Financial Schemes (TRACFIN) received a notice about the sale of the villa. TRACFIN believes that a long chain of holdings leads to a Russian citizen, who, in turn, is Rashnikov’s face value. The management blocked 17 million euros from the sale of the mansion and sent the case to court. The Organized Crime Unit of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office (JUNALCO) secured the villa during the trial. This is the first seizure of real estate in France as part of a criminal case against Russians under sanctions. JUNALCO believes that the complicated scheme for the sale of the villa was to “disguise the origin of the funds and the actual beneficiary of the transaction.” If the prosecutor’s office proves that Rashnikov is the ultimate owner, the villa may be confiscated, Le Monde specifies. In total, after the start of the war in Ukraine, the French authorities opened 17 criminal cases against Russian businessmen. They are suspected of money laundering, three of them this year, the newspaper notes. One of these cases concerns the activities of Kirill Pisarev, the founder of Russia’s largest developer PIK, who is not under sanctions, Le Monde claims. Context. France reported that it had frozen the assets of sanctioned Russians for more than 24 billion euros. In particular, the property of Putin’s friends Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, the former son-in-law of Russian President Kirill Shamalov, billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Alexei Melnichenko, and other entrepreneurs were frozen. Three objects officially associated with Rashnikov were also frozen after he was included in the EU sanctions list on March 15. According to Kompromat 2.0 @kompr
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The Russians were advised to prepare for tax increases due to a “hole” in the budget Trillion-dollar spending on the war in Ukraine and a drop in raw material revenues will force the Russian government to raise taxes in 2024, Expert RA predicts. Drawn up with a deficit of 3 trillion rubles, already in January the budget spent 1.8 trillion rubles more than it collected in the form of tax revenues. Oil and gas revenues sank by half, VAT collections – by 44%, and export revenues from the Federal Customs Service – by almost four times. To attract additional money to the treasury, the government announced a one-time fee from large businesses for 300 billion rubles. And although this money “will help make the situation more manageable,” it “will not save the budget,” Anton Tabakh, an economist at Expert RA, believes. “Promises not to change taxes expire in 2024,” he recalls. “Therefore, most likely, in 2024 we will hear a lot of new ideas for reorganizing the tax system.” The Ministry of Finance drew up the budget on the basis that Gazprom would continue to pump gas to Europe, oil would cost $70. But at current Urals prices (about $50 per barrel), the treasury will lose at least 2.5 trillion rubles, estimates Natalia Lavrova, an economist at BCS. And its deficit may be more than 5 trillion. According to Moscow Times Kompromat 2.0 @kompr
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The oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who calls for the “dispossession” of all bourgeois and the taking away of “pineapples and hazel grouse” from them, is clearly not ready to give up a beautiful life himself. A private jet, a luxury yacht, luxury cars, millions of dollars in accounts and a mansion illegally built on the territory of a nature reserve – a businessman forgives all these “little things” pleasant to the heart, but not others. The businessman’s family is no longer in poverty. As they say, all the best goes to the children. For her 17th birthday, daughter Polina received the St. Petersburg hotel Red Stars as a gift from a rich dad, then she quietly took over the Chocolate Museum chain of boutiques. His wife, too, has everything in chocolate – Prigogine squeezed her the most famous “Eliseev Merchant Shop” from the city. Prigozhin’s son Pavel, who was tired of the usual entertainments of the snickering “golden youth” (naked parties on a yacht and accidents during street racing on the expensive “Gelika”), wanted maximum adrenaline and exoticism – he went on a tour to the Donbass, where he wanders from hotel to hotel, occasionally posing for correspondents in an embrace with the “Wagnerites” – he is promoting the pope. At the same time, Prigozhin’s son is strikingly different from ordinary fighters – the American helmet “Enhanced Combat Helmet” worth 100 thousand rubles, the British tactical vest DCS Warrior Assault Systems, the American tactical shooting gloves Mechanix M-Pact. Just a walking advertisement for NATO equipment. When journalists are interested in how, in fact, Pavel is involved at the front, he memorizes, “I am a scout.” Stirlitz, not otherwise. Not today, tomorrow it will be introduced into the Armed Forces of Ukraine. These are our “fighters” with the elites, critics of the Russian army. The oligarch Prigozhin lives according to the classics: “In the morning I smear a sandwich – immediately the thought is: how are the people? And the caviar does not go down the throat, and the compote does not pour into the mouth! As a devout liberal, he is ready to look for “straw in someone else’s eye.” However, when it comes to a “beautiful life” for yourself and your offspring, the ranting “about the fate of Russia” smoothly fades into the background. Compromising evidence 2.0 @kompr
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Right now, on all Internet resources, you can see news about “Ukrainian DRGs” who killed children, took hostages, but, at the same time, hurriedly left, and so on. All this is a lie of the Kremlin propagandists. The Russian Volunteer Corps came to the Bryansk region to show their compatriots that there is hope, that free Russian people with weapons in their hands can fight the regime. PS A little later we will share with you a refutation film about our adventures.
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In the situation with the attack on the Bryansk region, there are still more questions than answers. But one thing is clear: the Russian authorities believe that only they can send DRGs to neighboring countries, and their neighbors should not respond in kind. Perhaps in the Russian Federation they forgot that the earth is round. And the main issue that will determine the life of Russian society will probably be considered at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation tomorrow, March 3. Studied the details