Putin Said Ready to Revamp Inner Circle as Ally Yakunin Goes

Kremlin and River

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Irina Reznik, Ilya Arkhipov, Olga Tanas – August 18, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ready to start replacing long-serving allies in his inner circle after the sudden departure of OAO Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakunin as head of the country’s largest employer. Putin intends to bring in trusted younger people to shake up his team ahead […]

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RIA Novosti: Russian Railways CEO Denies Navalny’s Allegations of Corruption

File Photo of Alexei Navalny Being Grabbed by Police at Protest

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 19, 2013) The head of one of the world’s largest transport companies, state-owned Russian Railways, this week dismissed as unfounded corruption allegations made against him by opposition protest leader Alexei Navalny, Prime news agency reported. In a blog post earlier in the week, Navalny published details of property and offshore companies that he claims are […]

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The End of the Consensual Hallucination

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – June 24, 2013) A lot of things that people say never happened before suddenly seem to be happening. When news agencies incorrectly reported — based on a forged government press release — that President Vladimir Putin had sacked his longtime ally, Russian Railways chief Vladimir Yakunin last week, some analysts called the incident […]

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Russian Security Services Hunt Culprits in Railroad CEO Hoax

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, June 20, 2013) ­ The hunt is on to find those behind hoax claims that the CEO of Russia’s railroad monopoly had been dismissed, which caused a flurry of confusion in the Russian media. On Wednesday evening, Russian news outlets received a press statement saying that Vladimir Yakunin had been dismissed as head of Russian Railways […]

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Bloggers Claim Photos Show Yakunin Mansion

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – June 4, 2013 – photo here: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/bloggers-claim-photos-show-yakunin-mansion/480966.html) Bloggers have published pictures of a luxury mansion, believed to be owned by Vladimir Yakunin, the head of Russian Railways and powerful member of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The three-story marble-clad mansion, occupying 70 hectares of land near the Moscow suburb of Domodedovo, was […]

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