The wonderful Zakhar Prilepin was at today’s meeting between writers and Putin. And with the bluntness of a Russian writer, he asked him about Gunvor and, even more interestingly, the "Transneft case." Putin has nothing to do with Gunvor (SURPRISE). "I’ve never meddled in that and I’m not going to. I hope he won’t go sticking his nose into my affairs either," the prime minister added Timchenko became that rich all on his own. Supposedly, he personally persuaded the oil companies to trade through his firm on very favorable terms. A talented businessman, who gave up Russian citizenship but continues to make money from our oil. A citizen of the world, sure. And with Transneft, it gets even better: At Prilepin’s request, he also had to comment on another major scandal with a corruption angle—the story published by Alexei Navalny about roughly $4 billion in embezzlement at Transneft. Putin said he was confident that no criminally punishable acts had been committed at the company. "If there had been anything criminal there, I assure you, people would have been behind bars long ago," the prime minister explained. Refresh your memory.
So. Today, future Russian President V.V. Putin said clearly—he even said he was confident: don’t believe your own eyes. None of this happened. If it had, we would have gone WHAM! But it didn’t. So not WHAM!—quite the opposite. Today everyone at Transneft will drink themselves silly with happiness. Vainshtok, who spirited billions abroad, will celebrate a new birthday. Crooks in state companies all across the country will breathe a sigh of relief and raise a toast to the new President, quivering in anticipation of fresh windfalls. I am very grateful to Zakhar Prilepin, because thanks to his questions, today we got an answer—in concrete examples—to the question of what Putin’s next term will look like. Vividly and clearly.