A Bette Op-Ed: Sergei Lavrov & the Russian Leitmotif
Retired IRS criminal investigator Martin Sheil’s latest op-ed in Bette follows the offshore money with a plan to stick it to the oligarchs; plus, RadPod in the news and your Gareth Gore reminder
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Author’s note: Before we get to Marty’s latest op-ed on horse face killers, just a couple of notes from me. I am trying to do my part to dial down the headspace clutter. Before the US election of 2024 — before the pro-democracy faction had lost a major battle — there was an urgency to wake people up to facts — which are real and tangible — and away from the Bad Theater of Perpetual Distraction.
Since this major loss, there’s been too much noise and reaction, and not enough thoughtful, strategic, and informed action. This is why I’m trying to focus less on day to day reaction, and more on informed reporting from historians and hands-on experts. There’s nothing like an intellectual historian who studies and has lived in Eastern Europe to offer us urgent insights. An example: my latest interview with Dr Marci Shore in the Byline Times print edition:
I posted the above excerpt here at Bette, but I’d be grateful if you read the following summary quotes from Shore and share them with your networks:
Children being buried under rubble anywhere, in any circumstances, for any reason, is abominable.
Benjamin Netanyahu is a fascist and Hamas is a terrorist organisation. Israelis have a clear and obvious reason to see Hamas as a threat, and Palestinians have a clear and obvious reason to see the Israeli Government as an oppressor. None of that justifies the slaughter, but the reasons are not fictitious.
In contrast, the war in Ukraine is historically unusual in its moral clarity: there’s absolutely no reason for Russians to be kidnapping, torturing, slaughtering Ukrainians.But the Kremlin, Russian television, and its troll factories have spun one fiction after another, and the Russian soldiers don’t actually know why they’re in Ukraine carrying out atrocities. The Russian Army could just go home.
…Europe should mobilise, lift the weapons restrictions, defend Ukrainian air space, give Ukraine everything it needs to win, send troops if necessary, and enable Ukraine to bring about a decisive defeat as quickly as possible that will bring down Putin’s regime. This is not a negotiation situation – we need a Stunde Null moment [meaning ‘Zero Hour’, [this refers to the period following the end of the Second World War in Germany in 1945, signifying the complete collapse of the Nazi regime]. Until the Russian regime is decisively brought down, all of Europe will be hostage to Putin’s threats. For that matter, all of Russia will be hostage to itself: Putin will burn through all his country’s resources and bleed through his entire population until he’s defeated.
I can offer a hopeful insight from Hannah Arendt: “The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which all practical, everyday purposes amounts to certainty; the new therefore always appears in the guise of a miracle. The fact that man is capable of action means that the unexpected can be unexpected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely improbable.”—Dr Marci Shore, excerpted from print edition #76 of Byline Times.
A couple other quick notes: my RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast partner High Fidelity just did a brilliant interview with Bette member Dee Batiste on the Digital Authoritarian Playbook.
Have a listen:
Dee is an Army veteran and pro-democracy activist, who co-founded Blue Tennessee with David Pepper right out of the zoom room of Bette Dangerous — evidence that community matters.
High Fidelity is a network technologist who uses his trolling prowess to expose digital militias working in the Kremlin’s interest to overthrow democracies by terrorizing reporters in targeted abuse campaigns.
In addition, my other RadPod co-host Jim Stewartson — an Emmy award-winning game developer — was just interviewed by CNBC about the lawfare directed at him by Russian propaganda superspreaders Kash Patel and Mike Flynn. Here is what he told them:
“I was never served with this lawsuit. I just found out about the judgement from trolls on Twitter last week.”
He said that Patel's lawsuit, and another pending defamation complaint against him by former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn in Florida state court, are “intended to intimidate me because I have been accurately and diligently reporting on Patel and Flynn's involvement in the Anon movement and their participation on January 6th for five years.”
“It is a preposterous, frivolous lawsuit and neither of them will receive a dime," Stewartson said. "In fact, I intend to pursue my own case against them for their years-long campaign of abuse of me and the legal system.”
The FBI said that Patel would have no comment on the decision.
Lastly, RadPod & (Not So) Chill has been on a brief hiatus as I travel and line up guests for RadPod in the Fall. We have some incredible talent coming up, and I’m very excited also about Bette’s Happy Hour zoom with Opus author Gareth Gore this Tuesday at 10 am Pacific. Please be sure to register:
Thank you to all the new, returning, and Founding level members. Now on to Marty’s latest on the Russian mob/government. In my opinion, the Alaska shitshow successfully normalized monsters. Marty has a simple plan on how to hit ‘em where it hurt$.—hsc
A Bette Op-Ed: Sergei Lavrov & the Russian Leitmotif
By Martin Sheil
So Lavrov is the Russian Foreign Minister known to be particularly close to Putin and leading the Russian leadership entourage accompanying Putin to Alaska and the so-called Ukrainian ceasefire talks that seem to be going nowhere fast.
Putin is said to be torn between two powerful competing factions when it comes to Ukraine — the Russian military industrial complex and the wealthy contingence of Russian oligarchs whom Putin casually refers to as ‘Earners’…
Accompanying Lavrov to Anchorage was the Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov; Finance Minister Anton Siluanov; head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund (RDIF) — Russian Development Investment Fund — Kirill Dmitriev.
It is reasonable to ask which faction holds sway with Lavrov and therefore Putin.
I suspect that Lavrov will lean toward the oligarchs.
Why?
Many of the leading Russian oligarchs who are closest to Putin e.g. Deripaska, Abramovich, Timchenko, Rotenbergs et al maintain much of their wealth in offshore shell companies located in Cyprus or the British Virgin Islands.
How about Sergei Lavrov?
Let’s take a look at what the Panama Papers say about Lavrov through the ICIJ database:
Oh my!
We can see that Lavrov has some things in common with the above listed oligarchs. He is closely associated with a BVI shell company called Success Stage.
If we drill down on this BVI shell company we can see that it is an intermediary of another shell company that is located in Cyprus an island in the Mediterranean that is so attended by Russians it is sometimes called Moscow on the Med.
Given the evidence - which faction do you think Lavrov favors?
So what should be Sergei Lavrov & the Russian elite leitmotif?
I have written before that should the U.S. really want to put the screws to Russia in terms of sanctions then the U.S. could simply put the Patriot Act to use and declare Cyprus a nation of money laundering and therefore close it to all international banking transactions until further notice.
The Russians are already struggling with conducting international banking transactions since they have been excluded from the SWIFT system.
Trump should hit the oligarchs where they really hurt and clamp down on their offshore dealings through Cyprus.
Now those innocent accountants, lawyers financial consultants and bank employees who reside in Cyprus can join in the outcry and further pressure the Cypriot authorities to close down Moscow on the Mediterranean. Certainly Ukraine will support such measures.
The oligarchs will adapt. It is time to deny Lavrov and therefore Putin from anymore success on the international stage.
Martin Sheil
Retired Supervisory Special Agent IRS Criminal Investigation
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
Thank you for the switch, it definitely helps me see ways other countries have addressed it