Baltik-Eskort operated openly as a private security service to protect Putin, Sobchak, and other[s]... It... allegedly acted as a liaison with the criminal underworld in St. Petersburg, including... Aleksandr Malyshev, reputed head of the Malyshev criminal organization, and , the reputed head of the Tambov crime organization. Some... employees were members of criminal groups and... accused of being involved in the assassinations of political figures...
American political scientist (1949–2018)
(December 2, 1949 – April 11, 2018) the daughter of a school teacher and a jazz musician, was an American political scientist and writer. She was a professor in the Department of Political Science at in , and the director of .
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Putin... 1991... was made head of the supervisory council overseeing the... gambling industry in St. Petersburg. ...[H]ow did the city become a majority owner in... [that] gaming industry in St. Petersburg? ..."by relinquishing the right to collect rent for the facilities that the s occupied," the city could claim 51 percent ownership ...[E]stablishing a joint stock company called Neva Chance, which... went on to create over twenty-five different [gambling industry] companies ...many ...headed by ex-FSB officials ...
Sal'ye summed up the operation and Putin’s ambition... "...Cook up a legally defective contract ...take a license to the Customs Office... open the border... send the goods abroad... and put the money in your pocket. ...It was ...not put out to tender. They needed their 'partners'... of the shadow economy, criminal and mafia structures, front companies that could ensure this... . ...[H]is ...lamentations about the disappearing firms deserve nothing but contempt."
After his electoral loss in 1996, Sobchak... charged... with corruption... had to flee the country... widely reported as masterminded by Putin. ...[G]etting Sobchak out... protected those, like Putin, about whom there was a lot of incriminating information. ...Sal'ye ..."Before, Putin was under Sobchak’s protection [under his roof], and now Sobchak was under Putin’s protection [krysha]."
...Timchenko's company "was a beneficiary of a large export quota under a scandal-tainted oil-for-food scheme set up by Mr. Putin when he worked as head of the city administration’s foreign economic relations committee in 1991 ..." Timchenko and his colleagues were never prosecuted, and indeed he went on to establish .
Putin's ...securing a monopoly position for select firms was a feature ...while deputy mayor. While he professed ...economic liberalization and private property, he ...acted to reduce competition ...and maximize profits for ...friends. In St. Petersburg, Åslund reported, "...Swedish and Finnish businessmen complained about Putin squeezing out their companies ...through ...lawless tax police, to the advantage of [friendly] companies ..."
Vladimir S. Milov...<blockquote>...[T]hese guys have benefited and made their fortunes through deals which involved state-controlled companies... operating under... direct control of government and the president... [C]ose friends of Putin... of relatively moderate means before Putin came to power all of a sudden turned out to be billionaires.</blockquote> ...[A]t the same time ...income disparity in Russia had never been worse, with the superrich doubling their wealth and the bottom fifth of the population in 2011 making only 55 percent of ...1991 earnings ...despite Putin’s electoral claims that his rule had brought prosperity ...
Putin’s relationship with his friends was... of reciprocity: ...supporting their raids on private businesses, providing ...no-bid state contracts ...allowing the courts to legalize their activities and criminalize those of ...opponents. In return ...they became the bulwark of his base ...helped finance and secure his electoral victories ... removed ...enemies... and... paid him . All... began in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s, when he started to promote ...s from ...Leningrad and ...
The Economist outlined the essential truths of the Putin era...<blockquote>The job of Russian law enforcers is to protect the interests of the state, personified by their... boss, against the people. ...[F]ormer (and not so former) members ...have gained huge political and ...since ...Putin came to office. ...[T]op ranks in the ...FSB ...describe themselves as the ...new nobility ...personally loyal to the monarch and entitled to an estate with people to serve ...As Russia’s former Procurator General ...said in front of ...Putin: "We are the people of the sovereign." Thus they do not see a redistribution of property from private hands into their own as theft but as their right.</blockquote>
... in 2005 became head of . In... 2013 Putin announced... $43 billion... borrowed from Russia’s pension fund... to stimulate the economy, including $14 billion to build three infrastructure projects, two... by Russian Railways. The Russian free media... forecast... such... would... stimulate... corruption. ...Navalnyy ...criticized Yakunin’s entry to... Russia’s billionaires... as the head of a state-owned firm ...a salaried employee ..."In all other countries, the railways are used for movement, but we use them for stealing."
Smirnov met Putin in 1990 in Germany... He... headed one of the companies... in the [early 1990s] food scandal... millions being stolen; [beginning in 1994] he and Putin sat... on the board of the... SPAG... accused of laundering money for Russian and Columbian organized crime; and he signed over a monopoly position to the Petersburg Fuel Company, which he co-owned with Barsukov-Kumarin. ...Putin ...appointed Smirnov head of Tekhsnabeksport, one of the world’s largest suppliers of nuclear goods and services to foreign governments...