An excellent column by Butrin zt in Kommersant (a major Russian business daily) In recent years, the connection between Iceland’s financial system and its population of 300,000 has been rather tenuous. Iceland’s financial sector is five times the size of the country’s GDP: since the early 2000s, taking advantage of EU banking freedoms, three Icelandic banks have been aggressively expanding across Europe. In the UK, for example, few people know the name Landsbanki, but everyone knows the IceSave brand—an ultra-popular online branch of the Icelandic bank in England and the Netherlands, where at least half a million people from the two countries keep their savings. Glitnir and Kaupthing were names extremely popular among London millionaires in 2007–2008. And as we know, a London millionaire is not a statement of nationality: for now, the biggest potential victim of Iceland’s banking crisis is considered to be Robert Tchenguiz, an Iranian businessman living in London. If Russia does not save Iceland, he stands to lose €1.2 billion in Icelandic banks. Of course, we do not know exactly how much money London millionaires of Russian origin stand to lose in Iceland. Roman Abramovich, for example, visited Reykjavik more than once. It is known that Oleg Deripaska was interested in Iceland not only for its energy sector and aluminum industry. As for other potential victims from Russia of the Icelandic banking system, one can only speculate. We know only that the assets of the three Icelandic banks stood at €61 billion at the time of the crisis. What share of that was money of Russian origin? We believe it was more than the €4 billion that Iceland would in any case repay within three or four years. *Let us not even mention that the crisis in Iceland unfolded against the backdrop of a conflict between the country’s authorities and the UK (if Russia for some reason needs victories over that island, then saving another island on credit is a splendid idea); that Russia’s participation in rescuing the globalized European financial system could have sharply improved Russia’s image in Europe; that for Russia, saving Iceland could have greatly eased its difficult relations with all of Scandinavia; that €4 billion is very little money for Russia; and finally, that it is better to save Iceland than to wage war with Georgia for roughly the same amount... Yet none of this can now help Russia’s reputation. Unlike charity, support of this kind is beneficial only when it is public, open, and transparent. But sadly, this openness is abundant in Iceland and scarce in Russia. Perhaps Ambassador Tatarintsev will indeed enter Icelandic national sagas as a herald of salvation. **But Russia’s image has once again been damaged—this time at the cost of its own €4 billion. ** *http://www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1038563 That’s exactly right: with its own four billion, Russia managed to land itself in a scandal and once again confirm its reputation as a country that engages in shady dealings at the state level.