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Kremlin Slams 'Putinophobia' of Panama Papers

by Daniel Schearf April 04, 2016

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman on Monday dismissed a report that alleges close friends of the president hid some $2 billion dollars in offshore accounts.

The report, dubbed the "Panama Papers," links hundreds of political leaders and celebrities to offshore companies set up through a Panama-based law firm called Mossack Fonseca.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists that the report does not have any relation to Putin. He said Putin appeared to be targeted because of Russia's coming elections and what he deemed 'Putinophobia.'

Peskov denied also that his own wife, former figure skating champion Tatiana Navka, had ever owned an offshore company as alleged in the report. He went on to allege that former employees of the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other special services were behind the report and want to destabilize Russia.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, or ICIJ, the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, and hundreds of other news organizations scoured through countless leaked documents to produce the report.

It also names Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, among other current leaders, as having set up or been connected to offshore accounts through Mossack Fonseca. The ICIJ says the apparent aim was to hide wealth and avoid paying taxes. The law firm denies wrongdoing.

A week ago, Peskov said the Kremlin was preparing for what he called an 'information attack' that would target Putin and people close to him.

Andrei Kolesnikov, an expert on Russian domestic politics at the Carnegie Moscow Center, says the statement in advance shows the Kremlin is nervous. "But, on the other hand," he says, "I don't think this will have a very strong impact on public opinion or the collective consciousness of Russians."

"There is a common view of Russian people, the majority of Russian people, that everybody is a thief at the top of this political system," says Kolesnikov. "And paradoxically, it means nobody is a thief; nobody is responsible for this corruption."