A Russian banker has reportedly tried to argue that President Vladimir Putin does not have vast secret wealth because he is "very much dedicated to his job."
During an interview in Moscow with CNBC television, part of the U.S. NBC network, Russian banker Andrey Kostin cast doubt on a $2 billion money trail leading to Putin, as revealed in financial documents known as the Panama Papers.
Kostin, the chief executive of Russia's state-owned VTB bank, said, "I don't believe that Mr. Putin has $2 billion, because even if he wanted to have, I don't know how he is going to spend them,” Kostin said in a portion of the interview published online. The banker said he does not think that “earning private wealth" is one of Putin's personal priorities, and that no one has ever seen evidence of such wealth possessed by the Russian president.
By assets, VTB Bank is Russia's second-biggest, after Sberbank, which also is state-owned. The government has a 60.9 percent stake in VTB, but Kostin denied the Kremlin has influenced his bank's operations.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported in April that suspicious payments made by “Putin's cronies may have, in some cases, been intended as payoffs, possibly in exchange for Russian government aid or contracts.” The secret documents suggested that much of the money originally came from a bank in Cyprus, the ICIJ said, “that, at the time, was majority owned by the Russian state-controlled VTB Bank.”
The documents also showed dozens of transactions, over more than a decade, involving people or companies linked to Putin, who has been in power at the Kremlin since 2000. Among those identified in the document were Putin's long-time friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, and the wife of Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Putin has admitted there were transactions between him and Roldugin, but said there was no evidence of illegal activity. Roldugin has dismissed any suggestion that he was either a custodian or a conduit for Putin's money or assets.
美国习惯用语-第232讲:Pick Up the Tab/Go
美国习惯用语-第209讲:Wall-to-wall
美国习惯用语-第221讲:As light as a feath
美国习惯用语-第231讲:Give Somebody the Hook
美国习惯用语-第198讲:Cut a deal
美国习惯用语-第236讲:high and dry/dry up
美国习惯用语-第239讲:fair and square/ fair&nb
美国习惯用语-第223讲:Bread and butter
美国习惯用语-第207讲:motor mouth
美国习惯用语-第206讲:take a walk
美国习惯用语-第252讲:sweet talk/snow job
美国习惯用语-第237讲:in the doghouse / b
美国习惯用语-第254讲:to butter up someone
美国习惯用语-第248讲:to get to the botto
美国习惯用语-第230讲:Right on the Mark
美国习惯用语-第227讲:Give One a Break/Break&n
美国习惯用语-第251讲:smart money/mad money
美国习惯用语-第197讲:the works
美国习惯用语-第213讲:short and sweet
美国习惯用语-第212讲:Over the long haul
美国习惯用语-第233讲:tax-and-spend-liberal
美国习惯用语-第225讲:Like Greased Lightning
美国习惯用语-第203讲:To close the books
美国习惯用语-第235讲:Dry run/Cut and dried
美国习惯用语-第204讲:Bad-mouth
美国习惯用语-第238讲:bummer/bum rap
美国习惯用语-第217讲:Ups and downs
美国习惯用语-第215讲:On the level
美国习惯用语-第255讲:smoke and mirrors
美国习惯用语-第220讲:Birds of a feather
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