Wow, I made the front page of Izvestia (a major Russian newspaper). Well, not exactly me, but our old acquaintance, Transneft President Nikolai Tokarev—and he was talking about me. What else would he talk about, really. The interview is magnificent. An absolute must-read. I don’t know whether it’s deliberate or not, but every one of N. Tokarev’s rare public appearances seems to happen precisely when President Medvedev is lecturing the broader public about legality and the rule of law. Today Medvedev is speaking in St. Petersburg at the International Legal Forum. An international financial center in Moscow, rule of law, monitoring court decisions, blah blah blah.
And then this stern man, hands folded over his belly, comes along and shows what real life is—and what place court rulings and Medvedev’s fantasies actually have in it. Let me remind you that on April 28, we won our case against the Transneft people in the appellate court over access to the board of directors’ minutes. The court ruling has entered into force. They are required to hand over the documents. Not because I want them to, but because the court has ruled that way twice. “W**e do not hand anything over to crooks, and we have no intention of doing so,”** Nikolai Tokarev declared categorically in an interview with our newspaper. * Then comes the usual talk about how they’ll go to the Constitutional Court, the lottery office, and UNESCO. What’s especially priceless is this: “W*e are now preparing a cassation appeal. ... I**f that doesn’t help either, we’ll see what other resources we have to avoid having anything concrete to do with this figure,*”** says Nikolai Tokarev. Well yes, we can already see what resources are being brought into play. But all this legal mumbo-jumbo pales in comparison with Tokarev’s absolutely wild performance at the end of the interview: “I deeply regret that our media are collectively trying to turn into a hero a man who was thrown out of Yabloko (a Russian liberal political party), and whom Yavlinsky called a fascistoid type. He was thrown out of SPS (the Union of Right Forces, a Russian political party) over suspicions that he embezzled 90 million rubles (about $3 million at the time) allocated for the party’s advertising campaign. He was thrown off television for organizing a skinhead gathering in the studio. ** He shot at people with a traumatic pistol (a non-lethal firearm common in Russia) at a public party while pr*esumably in some kind of altered state. *A criminal case has been opened against him over his murky business connected with timber in the Kirov region. This man is being fawned over by Madeleine Albright’s National Democratic Institute—everyone knows how much she hates Russia. Former presidential candidate McCain is spending effort on him, and so is his staff. American taxpayers paid for his education at Yale University, which trains so-called leaders for the ‘Third World.’ Everyone knows what kind of leaders they train there. He is received by the American ambassador. **Judging by the latest public Wikileaks materials, they think very highly of this man’s potential and strongly recommend that the State Department make active use of him in the interests of the United States... There’s no point saying anything more about him; that’s already far too much honor,” says Nikolai Tokarev. *Well, what can I say? It’s all true. After Madeleine Albright fawned over me, I embezzled 90 million from SPS, assembled a gathering of skinheads, and started shooting at everyone with a pistol McCain bought for me. I did it in a fascistoid frenzy, so American taxpayers, with the ambassador’s backing, paid for my education at Yale University. That’s exactly right. And the claim that Tokarev and Vainshtok stole several billion dollars during construction of the ESPO pipeline (Eastern Siberia–Pacific Ocean) — that’s a lie. McCain and the ambassador made it up. The claim that Transneft siphoned off half a billion rubles (about $17 million at the time) under the guise of charity — that’s a lie too; Albright invented that one. And the claim that Transneft’s security service stole all the money allocated to dig up kompromat (compromising material) on me, and then simply spent 10 minutes googling and creatively repackaging every bit of nonsense about me from the internet—that’s a lie too. Wikileaks invented that. There’s just one question: how exactly did Tokarev work in intelligence? There should have been some kind of aptitude testing. By mistake, you can hire a crook for a responsible job. By mistake, you can hire someone stupid. But when he’s both a crook and stupid... Personnel work in the late USSR was clearly subpar. That’s probably why they lost the Cold War.
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