Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
A Spark in the Dark – Scottish Limited Partnerships and the UK Government’s Faltering Transparency Initiative
The government recently announced new legislation to reveal the beneficial owners of Scottish Limited eartnerships. But this has done little to shed light on the people controlling them. In June 2017, Bellingcat and Transparency International published a joint-report into Scottish Limited Partnerships (“SLPs”) and their increasing rise in...
Watch List Findings: Aug. 19, 2017
What follows are the preliminary findings for issues identified in the daily Watch Lists this week. We are only sending findings that we regard as significant or potentially significant to keep this list manageable. We have findings for all the Watch List items. Should you be interested in findings not listed here, please contact us and we will...
Kleptocracy Weekly: August 14-18
ICYMI: KI’s Peter Podkopaev and Natalie Duffy examine Russia’s road corruption for Foreign Affairs magazine. Hudson Institute is looking for interns to assist with research projects on Russia and Eastern Europe. U.S. Paul Manafort partnered on an $850 million New York real-estate deal with an ally of Vladimir Putin and a Ukrainian...
When Neutrality Isn’t an Option
The new US sanctions against Russia overwhelmingly passed Congress. But in parts of Europe, they are far less popular. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel last week called them “more than problematic.” In diplomatese, that means the Germans oppose them. The Association of European Businesses, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of European...
Little prospect of regime change in Russia short of a popular uprising – and that’s unlikely
Niocr25/ShutterstockVladimir Putin’s power in Russia can often look unassailable. However much Western media might champion potential opponents, the president maintains a tight grip, and it’s easy to see why. Any successor to Putin who was not a puppet would very likely seek to establish their anti-corruption credentials and...
Three risks and three scenarios for Ukraine
Between 2014 and 2017, Ukraine’s leadership failed to transform the country’s old post-Soviet Russia oligarchic system into a European and Western-style democracy. The transformation is inefficient and slow, and this entails risk, writes Roman Rukomeda. …read more Source:...
Is a Tolerant Culture Being Replaced by an Intolerant One?
One need not go back centuries to the Muslim conquest of the Christian late classical world — the medieval Barbary corsair raids, the Ottoman yoke in Central and Eastern Europe or the slave markets of Kaffa in Tatar Muslim Crimea — to understand that …read more Source: Gatestone...
August 17th, 2017
CHINA Hong Kong Democracy Campaigners Jailed Over Anti-China ProtestsTom Phillips, THE GUARDIAN Hong Kong’s democracy movement has suffered the latest setback in what has been a punishing year after three of its most influential young leaders were jailed for their roles in a protest at the start of a 79-day anti-government occupation known...
Donbas Militants Coordinate Fake ‘Ukrainian Saboteur’ Arrests with Russian FSB
A day after Russia’s FSB produced a video of a Ukrainian ‘confessing’ to his part in an SBU plot to commit acts of sabotage in Crimea, Donbas and Russia, Kremlin-backed militants have come up with their own videoed arrest. The alleged saboteur is seen supposedly being seized in the middle of summer wearing a jersey, leather jacket and...
Kleptocracy Daily: August 17, 2017
News Brazilian prosecutors plan to investigate last year’s controversial sale of the Argentine subsidiary of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company. [Prosecutors were now looking into it as part of Brazil’s sweeping “Car Wash” anti-corruption investigation.] The state-appointed lawyer defending former Ukrainian...
