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FINROSFORUM  //  The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum strives to promote cooperation between the peoples of Finland and Russia by supporting civic initiatives for democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech.

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Feb 2 / 2:31pm

Russian riot police blow the whistle

by Kerkko Paananen

A group of Russian riot police officers told the opposition New Times that they are being forced to make false arrests and that their fellow officers work as bodyguards for gangsters.

"One of us once protected a shwarma place outside a hotel in Moscow's Ismailov district. On Arbat, we guard the office of a Georgian mobster," one officer said. Commanders get their cut.

Officers were forced to arrest innocent people because of orders to make at least three detentions per shift. Otherwise they risked seeing their monthly salaries cut, the report said.

The police officers made their allegations public after they received no reaction to a letter sent to President Dmitry Medvedev. The letter was signed by "about a dozen" OMON officers.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/omon-officers-complain-of-corruption-in-their-ranks/398800.html

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Filed under  //  Corruption   OMON   Police   Russia  

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Feb 1 / 6:02am

The Wizard of Russia

by Kerkko Paananen

Putin never lies, steals or even makes a mistake. His reputation is irreproachable. Few Russians know about the corruption allegations brought against him in the early 1990s. Few know how many of Putin’s friends were given CEO positions in Russia’s largest corporations, helping them make their way onto the Forbes billionaire list in only a couple of years -- nor would they believe any of this if they found out about it.

Putin responded to Western media reports alleging that his net worth is estimated to be tens of billions of dollars. In his signature style, he said commentators invented this rubbish by picking the information from their noses and spreading it across their newspaper pages and internet sites. End of discussion. In an open society, these and other allegations would be aired, investigated and made part of the public discussion.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/the-wizard-of-russia/398737.html

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Filed under  //  Corruption   Putin   Russia  

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Jan 25 / 12:10am

Russia's campaigner against corruption

by Kerkko Paananen

Alexey Navalny already had a reputation as a rabble-rouser when he showed up at the annual general meeting for Rosneft, a Russian oil firm, in Moscow in June 2009. With a small stake in the company, Mr Navalny wanted to question Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin, a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, about management strategy and the lack of dividends for stockholders.

"I looked around and noticed a bunch of beefy-looking fellows sitting around me," Mr Navalny said in an interview in his sparsely furnished offices in Moscow. "I am well known in Rosneft, and they're not always happy to see me." Mr Navalny said he approached Mr Sechin afterwards and asked why he had been surrounded by guards. “He chuckled and said it was for my own safety,” Mr Navalny said.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that questions of personal safety arise wherever Mr Navalny goes. Cocksure and irrepressible, he has become Russia's most vocal and obnoxious minority shareholder, hounding the country’s largest companies with muckraking campaigns against corporate malfeasance and incompetence. Mr Navalny has a small stake in almost every major state-owned company in Russia.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100125/FOREIGN/701249805/1135

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Filed under  //  Business   Corruption   Energy   Gunvor   Navalny   Oil   Putin   Rosneft   Russia   Timchenko  

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