Tag: Europe - Page 5 - The Conversationalist

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How did we overlook billionaire Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s overt financial ties with the Russian oligarchy?

Though Wilbur Ross's 2014 buyout of the Bank of Cyprus, a tax haven for Russian billionaires, has been documented in the press, it only made headlines in 2017. Spy games may capture our cultural imagination, but dirty money is what greases the machinery.

On February 16, six Democratic senators sent a letter to Wilbur Ross with questions about his Russia ties but the White House sat on his response. Cory Booker was the only senator to keep pushing into last week with follow-up questions. Ross sailed through his confirmation yesterday without answering them. We didn’t follow the money and now it’s in the White House.

In a way, the Bank of Cyprus, where Ross is the primary stakeholder and vice-chairman, symbolizes the failure of Western efforts to diminish Russian financial influence.

Cyprus was a notorious tax haven for Russian businessmen until the European debt crisis in 2013 led the bank to collapse. Russian businessmen lost billions fast. Putin refused to help and Germany was reluctant to bail out the Russian deposits. It wanted to force Russians out of the European bank and so during restructuring, deposits were converted into shares. Ironically, this gave majority ownership of the bank over to Russian plutocrats. As the Cypriot president, Nicos Anastasiades, said in June 2013, “They wanted to throw out the Russians but in the end, they delivered our main bank to the Russians.”

This is where Wilbur Ross comes in. Having already made money during the European debt crisis through a takeover of the Bank of Ireland, Ross led a 1 billion euro takeover of the Cypriot bank during the summer of 2014, including a buyout of most, but not all of the Russian plutocrats. Viktor Vekselberg, one of Russia’s richest men, became the second-largest shareholder in the bank through his Bahama-based conglomerate, Renova Group.

Ross recruited Josef Ackermann, former CEO of Deutsche Bank, Putin associate and a director at Renova Group, to join Bank of Cyprus’s board. Deutsche Bank is Trump’s largest creditor and was recently found guilty of enabling a $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme, funnelling money from Moscow to offshore accounts in Cyprus (!), among other places.

Besides Ackermann, Bank of Cyprus’s board includes Ross as vice-chairman, a position he shared until 2015 with former KGB agent and businessman Vladimir Strzhalkovsky. After Strzhalkovsky’s resignation, Renova Group executive Maksim Goldman stepped up as vice-chairman. These relationships are more than a little bit incestuous.

In his rage against Obama and Clinton over the Panama Papers and Crimean sanctions, Putin could never have planned a revenge fantasy which played out as well as it has for him — it’s too perfect. But Putin did set himself up for success.

Oil men, offshore accounts and corrupt businessmen are Putin’s bread and butter, and now he has Trump, Tillerson and Ross in the White House.

It’s unfortunate considering that the sanctions seemingly limited Russia’s financial bad behavior. In March 2016, just a week before the Panama Paper leaks revealed Putin’s off-shore investments in the Caribbean, Reuters reported on Moscow’s tighter regulation of off-shore business, citing Vekselberg’s choice to bring assets home to Russia as evidence of the Kremlin’s new muscle.

Imagine the field day these thieves will have when sanctions are lifted and secrecy is protected. Of all of the Trump team’s connections to Russia, Ross’s are explicit and well-documented and yet nothing has been done about them.

Trump’s campaign knew about Vekselberg even before he won. As Trump’s own ties to Russia were being questioned in the weeks before the election, his campaign issued a press release accusing the Clinton Foundation of being on Vekselberg’s dole. Trump regularly accuses Clinton of crimes that he has in fact committed.

Additionally, though it predates Ross’s involvement in the Bank of Cyprus, Senator Booker’s follow up letter asks Ross if he has any knowledge about the 2008 purchase of Trump’s Palm Beach home by Dmitry Rybolovlev, another Russian billionaire and investor in the Bank of Cyprus. Good luck getting an official answer now.

America’s obsession with Flynn’s phone calls should not come at the expense of investigation into Ross’s relationship with notorious money launderers. Ross has yet to resign from the Bank of Cyprus. He has said he intends to divest, but talk is especially cheap with the Trump administration. Such overt corruption in the highest echelons of our government is corrosive, and, unlike the rest of the GOPs policies, is sure to trickle down.

[post_title] => Wilbur Ross, Trump and Russia: Dirty money in the White House [post_excerpt] => Oil men, offshore accounts and corrupt businessmen are Putin’s bread and butter, and now he has Trump, Tillerson and Ross in the White House. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => wilbur-ross-trump-and-russia-dirty-money-in-the-white-house-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2026-08-07 16:51:24 [post_modified_gmt] => 2026-08-07 16:51:24 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=419 [menu_order] => 361 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

January 22, 2019August 7, 2026

Wilbur Ross, Trump and Russia: Dirty money in the White House

by Anna Lind-Guzik

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 405 [post_author] => 2 [post_date] => 2019-01-22 14:45:38 [post_date_gmt] => 2019-01-22 14:45:38 [post_content] =>

Why don’t Trump supporters care that their leader seems more sympathetic to the Kremlin than he does to, say, his own intelligence community? Take a look at the numbers.

Among Republican voters, Putin is literally more popular than Obama. This trend didn’t didn’t come out of the blue. Republican leaders have been actively promoting Putin for some time.

There are many reasons why Putin is attractive to conservative voters — both obvious and not-so-obvious.

As Terrell J. Starr has repeatedly pointed out on Twitter (if you’re on Twitter, you should really follow his account, btw), Putin is particularly beloved by Americans who have a lot of anxiety around race issues/nonwhite leaders (*cough* Obama *cough*)/the idea of whites becoming a minority, etc.

While some of them know that Russia is a diverse country, they also see it as a country where “minorities know their place” (they may have heard as much from notorious racist David Duke to various right wing websites).

That’s just one piece of the puzzle— but it’s important, and rarely discussed by cable news. There is a lot of discomfort around this issue.

As for Trump himself, even if you discard the wilder allegations against him, including the idea that the Kremlin is literally blackmailing him, his line of work and his personality can clue you in as to why he wants to cozy up to the Kremlin.

Trump is a good salesman. He tells people what they want to hear.

Instinctively, Trump understood that what millions of people wanted to hear is that there is a country — a big country with imperial ambitions and nuclear might— where white people are in charge and make no apologies for it.

There is no pesky “political correctness” in this alleged white paradise. This image of Russia and its leader was a product that Trump could sell to voters. It worked. It’s still working.

(The reality of life in Russia is different from the fantasy, but we at the Anti-Nihilist Institute will get to that in our subsequent articles on the topic)

Trump is also just a narcissist. There is no getting around it — this man feeds off of the spotlight, he needs to be adored, and he believes that now that he is president, it is everyone’s job to adore him. He’s going to respond favorably to a Kremlin that’s making overtures to his ego, national security be damned.

On cable news, we keep hearing the excuse that Trump merely wants to normalize relations with Russia. If you know anything about foreign policy, this should strike you as odd. Normalizing relations ≠ siding with foreign officials over your own officials (the Russians know it too, which is why I recently told Marco Werman that I bet Putin is laughing at us right now).

What can be done about this hot mess? It pays to be realistic and play the long game.

Don’t think that facts will convince Trump or his most fervent supporters. If facts mattered to him or his base, he would have never become president. Facts don’t matter to the Kremlin at all, and it’s doing just great (for now).
Remember that people who bought into Trump mania are just as feverishly excited (if not more so) as a different section of the electorate was excited for Obama. The pendulum swings both ways — first there is the euphoria, and then the inevitable letdown.
When the letdown begins it’s important to remember that these excited people were, in many instances, motivated by rage. Many of them may be looking to turn to even more aggressive right-wingers as the result. A lot of right-wing leaders (particularly those who promote Russia as a white man’s paradise) who have flocked to Trump understand this.
This is why it’s important to begin the process of reconciliation sooner rather than later. If you know anti-Trump conservatives or even Trump voters who are beginning to have doubts, check out the Anti-Nihilist guide to reaching out to them. Only do it if you are able & think it is safe. Fellow white people, it’s time to step up to the plate and reject white supremacy. Use your privilege for good.
Remember that the majority of the American public did not vote for this man. How did the Bolsheviks win in Russia? They convinced everyone that they were the majority. “Bolshevik” comes from the Russian word “bolshinstvo,” or “majority”. (They did so, in part, by stealing isolationist, populist platforms to rouse the peasants and soldiers returning from WWI into a bloody civil war at home.) They were NOT even the majority of their own party, and if people never fell for their BS, Russia may have been a different country. The Trump White House is already using Kremlin-like tactics of distorting numbers in order to make support for Trump seem bigger than it is. Simple ideologies spread easily. Don’t fall for it.

As scholar Mark Galeotti explains, a Trump-Putin summit may torpedo the friendship between Trump and Putin faster than any intelligence dossier featuring kinky sex stuff.

It won’t be an issue of their differences, it will be an issue of their similarities. Putin depends on his image as a strongman. Trump depends on his image as an all-powerful corporate boss. They may never admit it in public, but in private the two are bound to clash.

Meanwhile, here is the main reason why Trump admires Putin — Putin does what he wants and is held accountable by no one inside his own country.

That kind of power comes at the cost of freedom for millions of people.

Watch out for anti-protest measures, for crackdowns on civic activity, for even more spying on Americans, for, well, classic authoritarian tactics.

Don’t expect the majority of Republicans in Congress to automatically revolt against this — they have proven themselves to be craven and self-serving.

Repealing the Affordable Care Act with no viable replacement is another measure that serves authoritarian interests. As any good authoritarian will tell you, when you have citizens who are literally struggling to survive, it’s much easier to do whatever the hell you want.

This is why it’s important to:

a) Keep up the pressure on your officials. Remember, they don’t like pressure — especially not when they have to face it publicly. Phone calls and e-mails will not be enough.

b) Hold the media to high standards. Access journalism is overrated when the people journalists are trying to access will only lie to their faces. Media sycophants will be used to advance Trump’s agenda.

c) Forge new alliances. Trump is impulsive and alienates people. He alienated his own intelligence community before he was sworn in (now he’s saying that he “loves” them — that just looks like more inconsistency to them). Meanwhile, your conservative neighbors down the street may not be as comfortable with the Trump-Putin bromance (not to mention Trump saying “grab them by the pussy”) as they pretend to be. You can use Trump’s impulsiveness against him.

d) Recall the lessons of self-isolating Russian liberals. The tactics of divide & conquer work. Don’t let them work on you.

This is not going to be an easy battle. But it will be slightly easier if we come prepared, with realistic goals on the agenda. Remember, a lot of the Democrats in Washington are not ready to hear any of this right now — and keeping pressure on them as a way of making them understand what’s happening is also important.

[post_title] => Russia as a “White Man’s Paradise” & Other Scary Reasons Why Trump Adores Putin (and what to do about it) [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => russia-as-a-white-mans-paradise-other-scary-reasons-why-trump-adores-putin-and-what-to-do-about-it [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2026-08-07 16:53:34 [post_modified_gmt] => 2026-08-07 16:53:34 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=405 [menu_order] => 365 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

January 22, 2019August 7, 2026

Russia as a “White Man’s Paradise” & Other Scary Reasons Why Trump Adores Putin (and what to do about it)

by Natalia Antonova

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By American exceptionalist logic, the United States is rich because Americans are good people who make good choices. Russians suffer because they’re dirty liars who don’t want to be happy.

As the Trump-Russia scandal continues to unravel, no one blinked when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said, “It is in [the Russian people’s] genes to be opposed, diametrically opposed to US and western democracies.” Excuse me? I had no idea that my DNA depended on an outdated, racist clash of civilizations. Tell me, sir: as a Russian-American Jew, will medical tests show trace amounts of Fifth Column in my blood?

Many will argue that statements like Clapper’s should be taken seriously but not literally. Even metaphorically, however, the statement is crap. The Russian people cannot be reduced to Putin’s regime, nor do they have an inherited cultural defect which can cured by exporting American capitalism or rule of law. Above all, their pride won’t allow them to submit to a culture that openly disdains them. What meeting of minds can there be when the likes of Vanity Fair and Louise Mensch treat the name “Vladimir” as an expletive?

According to a family anecdote, my father worked as a television engineer for the Soviet team taping the 1959 “Kitchen Debate” in Moscow between then Vice-President Richard Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev. The exhibition of kitchen appliances as the fruits of American capitalism was meant to foment envy in Soviet households over Americans’ superior lifestyle. The whole episode was recorded in color using American technology.

When Nixon boasted about America’s technological prowess, Khrushchev angrily responded that the Soviets would soon catch up. And so they did. In my father’s retelling, his team got the American camera crew so drunk that the chumps didn’t notice when their equipment was stolen. The Soviet team copied down blueprints of the technology before returning the equipment.

I told this story in a class discussion years ago and the professor, a humorless Cold Warrior, looked at me and retorted, “Ah, now you make sense!” It wasn’t a compliment.

We agreed that the Soviets broke the rules, didn’t respect American property rights, and didn’t innovate as quickly. With his backhanded shade, however, he turned a tricky historical situation into a moral failing, a defect passed down to me by my family.

His judgment came with all the moral weight of a sheltered American who’d never been forced to choose between bad and worse. Black and white thinking is for people who’ve never lived in grey.

Many Americans hear that story and see American capitalism rising above the Soviet saboteurs who would undermine democratic norms just for kicks. My takeaway was that the Americans were arrogant idiots for thinking they could out-drink the Russians that day. To each their own.

Americans of every political stripe enjoy shitting on the Russians to make themselves feel superior. They’re rough around the edges, hahaha! They’ve lived through horror and had to make ugly choices to survive. The women are whores and the men will bury you. As Dan Soder’s comedy bit goes, “Russians are the scariest white people.” And some people seriously believe that — and wouldn’t want them dirtying our democracy.

By American exceptionalist logic, the United States is rich because Americans are good people who make good choices. Russians suffer because they’re dirty liars who don’t want to be happy.

The political sentiment on Trump-Russia in 2017 can be summed up as: “Americans got Trump because shady Russians got him elected — not because of racist nativists and political corruption. Russians got Putin because they’re ignorant animals who don’t believe in human rights.”

Democrats and Republicans are playing up ignorant stereotypes to deflect from America’s institutional collapse. Democrats don’t want to admit to themselves that there is a vicious contingent of Americans who want white supremacist dictatorship.

That must be the Russian influence, they say. Pshh. The Republicans, meanwhile, are glorifying Russia as a haven for corporate malfeasance and white supremacist patriarchy. Someone should tell Ann Coulter that Muslims make up the second largest religious population in Russia before she tries to move there.

Russophobia, like any irrational hatred, plays directly into unscrupulous hands. Vladimir Putin exploits American condescension in order to bolster power at home. Propaganda works best when it contains a kernel of truth. Russians haven’t forgotten the American journalists in Sochi who laughed at the poverty and corruption ruining their lives. Imagine the schadenfreude Russians felt when Lavrov rubbed Comey’s firing in our faces before playing our president for a fool in the Oval Office itself.

Even in our current situation, Americans still live in a richer country with a vastly better quality of life, but instead of acting maturely, we’re sitting poolside like ladies who lunch, teasing Russia mercilessly for daring to apply to the same country club. The European Union did the same to Turkey with equally disastrous results.

Mar a Lago-style diplomacy will steer us all off a cliff

When we don’t take the time to relate to our geopolitical adversaries, or we call their inferiority complexes stupid, we‘re rubbing salt in old wounds. No one responds well to that kind of behavior.

The other day a young conservative mentioned to me how much he loved that Russia “doesn’t care about human rights” — a dangerous sentiment we’re hearing echoes of from Trump and Theresa May. When I told him that Russians do care about rights — socioeconomic rights, for example— he was shocked that Russians aren’t a mythical people built to suffer in order to make us feel superior. He preferred to rationalize his prejudice rather than debate me, but he’d be better served letting go and sitting for an episode of The Americans. That show knows that Soviets were people too.

[post_title] => American Russophobia is real — and it’s helping Putin [post_excerpt] => Russophobia, like any irrational hatred, plays directly into unscrupulous hands. Vladimir Putin exploits American condescension in order to bolster power at home. [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => american-russophobia-is-real-and-its-helping-putin-2 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2026-08-07 16:54:06 [post_modified_gmt] => 2026-08-07 16:54:06 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://conversationalist.org/?p=401 [menu_order] => 366 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )

January 22, 2019August 7, 2026

American Russophobia is real — and it’s helping Putin

by Anna Lind-Guzik

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