ITAR-TASS continues its series of truly epic interviews. After Gennady "Gangrene" Timchenko, who told us that he doesn’t use a computer and is closely related to Putin’s Labrador, it is now the turn of Vladimir Yakunin, the subject of many Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) investigations.
The interview, tellingly titled "Vladimir Yakunin: We Need to Stop Pretending to Be Innocent," is definitely worth a read.
He says very little about the fur vault, insisting that it is all just the scheming of slanderers beyond the bounds of decency:
But it would be strange to expect Yakunin to give a substantive answer about his palace or his offshore empire.
These interviews are very useful because something always slips out that perfectly captures the psychology of the crooks who have seized power in the country—their real philosophy and worldview.
I especially liked the part about children living abroad (it is obviously a response to our investigation into where Yakunin’s children and grandchildren live):
Let me remind you that this "great businessman," the Russian Railways princeling, whose business consists of parasitizing the state company run by his daddy, lives in London in a house bought in 2007 for £4.7 million.
It’s an amazing quote. The pampered son doesn’t want his children escorted to school by security guards. And daddy "can find no counterarguments."
Let’s offer old man Yakunin a few counterarguments. How about this: My dear Andryusha, the wisest of rulers, Vladimir Vladimirovich, has already been governing Russia for 15 years under conditions where the state budget is practically bursting with oil money. The ruling elite—our dacha cooperative "Ozero" (a group closely tied to Putin)—has arranged things so that your native Russia is the world record-holder for the number of police officers per capita:
In the godless United Kingdom, there are half as many police officers:
and on the way to school our little children will supposedly be stalked by ruthless, godless gay pedophiles, living comfortably in the city of London under the wing of a mayor whose hairstyle plainly points to a complete lack of "traditional moral values".
Why ever, dear little Andryusha, should anyone be afraid to send my grandkids to school when Putin and I have already created such a monster called the "law enforcement system" that it has devoured both education and healthcare in the budget. That’s where all the money goes.
Strange that such "counterarguments" never occurred to Yakunin.
Then again, maybe it’s not strange at all. Instead of caring about his own grandchildren, he’s hardly going to feed his son the same lines he feeds us through ITAR-TASS.
That’s why he tells him what he really thinks: We’ve sold off, drunk away, and ruined everything, Andryusha. Get yourself and the grandkids off to London—there’s no life here, and your dad’s job is to steal whatever is left. We still have that opportunity for now, and to prolong this golden age we maintain hordes of cops and FSB officers, whose job is to protect our power and our fur vaults, not children on their way to school. With your brilliant foreign education, you have nothing to do here. Register offshore companies in Panama, and Vladimir Vladimirovich and I will take care of the money flows. We’re special people, Andryusha. That’s why we think about our children, our grandchildren—their safety. That’s what distinguishes our enlightened ruling class from the common rabble: they don’t care how their children get to school. Let them sit quietly, watch television, and pay 20% more for a commuter train ticket every year. And if they start thinking too much about anything, we’ll just air more programs about fascist punishers and the decline of Europe. The main thing is: don’t end up in the shot when we start filming a segment on a London street about the depravity of life over there.
P.S. Don’t forget to vote: when it comes to "illicit enrichment," Yakunin is simply a record-holder.