Before people get too excited thinking that the Paradise papers might be a source of political damage to Vladimir Putin and associates, they might want to contemplate how a similar hope for the Panama papers played out, via a Washington Post chat with Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan --
Q: Your book suggests that Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. might be a response to the Panama Papers, the enormous 2016 leak of documents from an offshore banking network. Why do you think that leak of financial data angered the Kremlin so much?
A: It was seen as an attack on personal friends of Putin, his immediate circle. It's a line you cannot cross with Putin, and the Russian media learned that in a hard way. When a small Moscow publication reported in 2008 that Putin divorced and was going to marry a famous gymnast, the publication was immediately shut. When the RBC media holding published stories about Putin's daughter in 2015, the media holding's owner corporation was raided by police, and the media holding soon changed hands. Worse, Putin believed the Panama Papers attack was sponsored by Hillary Clinton's people — this, in a way, provided him with a “justification” for a retaliatory operation.
The more of this data that is out there, the better. But the political effects of tax avoidance/ evasion data dumps are asymmetric, depending on the nature of the media and information channels in various countries (note by the way that Wikileaks refused to handle the Panama papers, which also had an impact on how that release was perceived).
Q: Your book suggests that Russia’s alleged interference in the U.S. might be a response to the Panama Papers, the enormous 2016 leak of documents from an offshore banking network. Why do you think that leak of financial data angered the Kremlin so much?
A: It was seen as an attack on personal friends of Putin, his immediate circle. It's a line you cannot cross with Putin, and the Russian media learned that in a hard way. When a small Moscow publication reported in 2008 that Putin divorced and was going to marry a famous gymnast, the publication was immediately shut. When the RBC media holding published stories about Putin's daughter in 2015, the media holding's owner corporation was raided by police, and the media holding soon changed hands. Worse, Putin believed the Panama Papers attack was sponsored by Hillary Clinton's people — this, in a way, provided him with a “justification” for a retaliatory operation.
The more of this data that is out there, the better. But the political effects of tax avoidance/ evasion data dumps are asymmetric, depending on the nature of the media and information channels in various countries (note by the way that Wikileaks refused to handle the Panama papers, which also had an impact on how that release was perceived).
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