Dethroning Ukraine’s Oligarchs: A How-To Guide...

Greg Krasovsky's comments on Foreign Policy's "Dethroning Ukraine’s Oligarchs: A How-To Guide":

- I agree, It's bad news when an oligarchy controls the government and even the fourth estate (journalists and news media) in a country where opposition groups can be persecuted under the guise of fighting terrorism, separatism and foreign aggression.

- How can you talk about dethroning oligarchs when an oligarch is the president of Ukraine?

- the recent anti-offshore media coverage, including that on the Panama Papers, already has demonstrated the selective nature of Western "deoffshorization" anti-money laundering and anti-corruption efforts,

- For decades, if not centuries, America and its allies have supported friendly oligarchs and dictators throughout the world -- oligarchs who opposed American policy have been vilified and undermined.

If the current anti-corruption/oligarch drive is aimed primarily or exclusively at pro-Russian or anti-US/EU/NATO oligarchs, then the Ukrainian people may end up with a truly untouchable new class of oligarchs who will enjoy Western protection and indulgences.

   

- If the present breed of Ukrainian oligarchs is replaced by transnational financial groups who will benefit from privatization and government contracts (to spend moneys borrowed from foreign creditors like the IMF, World Bank and etc.) while avoiding domestic taxation by using formally legal tax avoidance schemes, then the Ukrainian people -- who at the end will be end up repaying those foreign loans from their taxes and social benefits just like the citizens of Greece -- will have jumped from the frying pan into the fire. 

- As long as Ukrainian oligarchs have a "get out of jail card," refuge and a place to stash their wealth either in the West (US/Europe), North (Russia) or even the rising East, any Ukrainian domestic anti-corruption/tax evasion/money laundering efforts will have very limited effect, especially when foreign money is allowed to seep into Ukraine's political system and buy corrupt politicians and civil servants. 

  

- Given to the reality of today's geopolitics concerning Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens, voters and taxpayers are forced to choose the lesser of two evils: supporting either pro-US/EU/NATO oligarchs and their pocket politicians or the pro-Russian variety. 

  

What is the true lesser evil is not something that Ukrainians should expect to learn from domestic and foreign establishment media or so-called think-tanks -- including Foreign Policy (a self-proclaimed "Trusted Advisor for Global Leaders When the Stakes are Highest") -- sources of information that are controlled by their own transnational oligarchs and financial-industrial groups who have their own agenda and ulterior motives for Ukraine and whatever wealth it still has.

         

Selected Excerpts:

"None of the country’s reforms can succeed while the oligarchs still rule. Here’s how to take them out.

  

Ukraine’s oligarchs are its biggest problem. If there is a single obstacle to establishing a functioning state, a sound economy, and true democratic accountability, it is the tycoons who control the country.

The oligarchs first emerged in the years following Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. They grew rich by gaining privileged access to the gas market, expropriating companies from private owners, trading with state enterprises on advantageous terms, and privatizing those same firms at pennies on the dollar. The crooked dealings that lie at the root of their fortunes give them a vital interest in keeping state officials corruptible, the economy rigged, and the rule of law weak. A world in which regulators abide by the rules, prosecutors and judges behave scrupulously, democratic procedures hold leaders accountable, and market competition works as intended is one in which the oligarchs cannot live and work.

Calls to finally stamp out their influence are growing ever louder and more numerous. But few observers have offered workable plans for doing so. With that in mind, we present a roadmap for how it can be done.

...

Western countries can help. First, they can deny Ukraine’s reprobate political class access to the billions in aid that enable it to stay in power. Far from supporting reforms, Western aid has propped up the country’s rulers and freed them from the need to build a functioning state and market economy. Continued aid will only prolong the elite’s hold on power. Assistance that bypasses the government and supports civil society should continue. And all aid could resume once genuine reformers come to power and install a government free of oligarchs and their hirelings.

Second, the West is home to the world’s two biggest offshore tax and secrecy jurisdictions, the United Kingdom and the United States. These and a slew of other tax havens in Western Europe shelter the fortunes of oligarchs and kleptocrats from Ukraine and elsewhere. If the plea-bargain strategy is to work, Ukrainian prosecutors must gain access to information about the oligarchs’ offshore holdings.Ukrainian prosecutors must gain access to information about the oligarchs’ offshore holdings. Western law enforcement agencies can assist their Ukrainian counterparts in this task.

But the first step is for the people of Ukraine to eject their political masters and replace them with competent outsiders and professional technocrats. Without this, none of the other measures we propose can succeed. It won’t happen this year. But Ukrainians are seeing as never before the necessity of replacing rather than just reshuffling their rulers. With the right leaders, a few good policies, and a little help from the West, Ukraine’s interminable reign of rot may yet come to an end."

  

Please read rest of the article at: 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/13/dethroning-ukraines-oligarchs-a-how-to-guide/

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Kiev allows torture and runs secret jails, says UN.

Greg Krasovsky: Torturing terror suspects and political opponents of your regime? Secret detention facilities - black sites? 

Sound vaguely familiar? 

I wonder where the current Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) could have learned all this? The Nazi Gestapo? The Soviet KGB? 

How about the modern CIA and its allies? 

Yes, the same CIA that's currently deeply embedded into the SBU and is actively helping it to fight pro-Russian federalists (separatists) and alleged Kremlin's agents (i.e. this who actively oppose the pro-U.S. Poroshenko regime)?
   
Is this the freedom, independence and constitutional democracy that Ukrainians deserved and expected from U.S. political, economic, military and intelligence support?
  
Where's the massive press coverage from Western mainstream establishment media? 

What? You didn't know that Western mainstream media tends to cover human rights abuses in countries whose governments are in opposition to the US/EU/NATO establishment? 

That's right folks, the best "get out of jail cards" for kidnappings, unlawful detentions, police brutality, torture and extra-judicial killings are doled out by the U.S. State Department, The Pentagon, and the U.S. Intelligence Community (CIA first and foremost) to virtually ALL U.S. allies and agents who are fighting America's traditional enemies (communists & etc.) and current opponents, such as these in the Middle East

- Libya's Muammar Gaddafi and his allies,
- Iraq's Saddam Hussein, Ba'ath party supporters, anti-American Sunni Muslims and Pro-Iranian Shiite Muslim groups, 
- Syria's Bashar al-Assad and his supporters,
- Iran's government and Shia religious leadership (ayatollahs),
- Bahrain's opposition to the pro-Saudi Arabian Sunni government
- Yemen's opposition to the the pro-Saudi Arabian Sunni government
- Afghanistan's opposition to  
- Pakistan's opposition 

Why? Because although you may be a bad guy, human rights abuser/violator, torturer, rapist, kidnapper, murderer or even a war criminal, you're the means that are justified by a noble end - spreading U.S. government influence and control. Sorry, I meant freedom, democracy, the free market and globalization.
  
So getting back to European Ukraine (the geographic center of the European continent is in Ukraine!), should we be surprised if the United States and its allies allowed the same type of political repressions against anti-U.S/EU/NATO groups as in Saudi Arabia, America's staunchest ally in the Arabian Peninsula with all ensuing consequences?

Should we be scared if the United States recommends and implements in Ukraine the same type of counter-insurgency and anti-communist/socialist measures as in Latin America from the 1960s to the 1990s, like in
  
- El Salvador
- Nicaragua
- Peru
- Colombia
- Argentina and
- Chile

or the counter-insurgency tactics elsewhere around the world like in 

- post-Hussein Iraq, 
- post-Taliban Afghanistan or 
- the Philippines (against communist groups and Moro Muslim Rebel groups).
  
Should we be surprised if the US/EU/NATO turn a blind eye against ethnic, linguistic, religious and political persecution of ethnic Russians, Russian-speakers, Russian Eastern Orthodox and Pro-Russian cultural & political movements, the same way that human rights abuses have been tolerated against America's perceived opponents in the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)?

If you're a staunch Ukrainian Nationalist who holds Ukrainian WWII Nazi collaborators as heroes and their anti-Soviet/Polish/Jewish tactics (i.e. war crimes and crimes against humanity) as justified, then you'll approve of ALL measures necessary to eradicate the Russian menace which you believe has ruined Ukraine for hundreds of years.

But if you're a moderate Ukrainian-Russian-American like me who wants to see a tolerant, independent, democratic and corruption-free Ukraine, then you'll be scared for the sake of all normal and peace-loving Ukrainians of the above scenarios.

Why be saddened and scared? Because I don't want Ukraine to go through what former Yugoslavia has experienced less than 30 years ago - a civil war where neighbors started to beat, torture, rape & kill neighbors just because they were of a different ethnicity. 
  
I don't want Ukraine to look like Iraq where neighbors killed neighbors because they were Sunni and not Shia (and vice-versa).
  
I don't want Ukraine to go through Argentina's Dirty War or the persecutions of Franko's Spain where political opponents are tortured and killed in secret prisons and their children stolen to be raised by their parents' henchmen. 

But all of the above crimes have already started to happen in Ukraine since the Euro-Maidan protests in February of 2014. For better or for worse, the majority of the human rights abuses, war crimes and crimes committed against humanity have been perpetrated by the US/EU/NATO supported Yatsenyuk/Poroshenko regime.

But the Western Political establishment, mass media and even human rights groups mostly have turned a blind eye on these crimes and abuses. Why? 
  
Is it because people believe that it's justified or even necessary to fight Russia's evil with evil?

If you believe that the persecution of legitimate & peaceful political opposition in the Soviet Union was wrong and evil, then why would you tolerate or even participate in the same type of evil in today's Ukraine, even if  it is directed (for now) just at the alleged agents and sympathizers of Russia and Stalin's supposed heir in the Kremlin? 
  
BTW, let's look at modern Russia's geopolitical forays since its founding in 1991 and look at the alleged "evil" it has caused by:

A. Former Soviet Union
- defending Abhazian autonomy in Georgia in 1992-1993 with peace-keeping troops,
- defending Ossetian autonomy in Georgia in 2008 with peace-keeping troops,
- defending Armenian autonomy in Nagorny Karabakh,  
- defending pro-Russian autonomy in Trans-Dniester region of Moldova with peace-keeping troops,
- providing military & political assistance to contain radical Islam and drug trafficking in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. 
- providing political, economic and military assistance to Pro-Russian eastern Ukrainian federalists ("separatists") in Donetsk and Lugansk.

B. Europe
- providing economic, political and military assistance to Serbia 
- providing political assistance to Greece
  
C. Middle East
- providing military support to Syria's legitimate government,
- selling arms and building a nuclear power plant in Iran

D. Latin America
- selling arms to and engaging in trade with Venezuela 
- providing military, political and economic assistance to Cuba 
   
Now let's compare this to the millions of deaths and billions (if not trillions by now) of US dollars in destroyed civilian infrastructure caused by US/NATO led or supported interventions since 1991 in
  
- Iraq
- Afghanistan
- Libya
- Syria
- Yemen

Now did "evil" Putin's Russia or the former Soviet Union cause the above conflicts and demand US/NATO foreign interventions that have created failed states? No!
    
So how can we justify, tolerate, ignore and/or go unpunished  human rights abuses, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the current Ukrainian government under the flag of fighting Russian aggression and Kremlin's agents of influence?  
  
Please remember that ANY selective tolerance of evil, tyranny and despotism by a society or its government, regardless of whether it is 

- happening domestically or abroad,
- being done or tolerated initially in a limited way on a temporary basis,
- being used to fight a "greater" evil,

will sooner or later desensitize and corrupt the tolerant observer, facilitator or accomplice and lead to a potentially lethal spread of evil like a cancer with unavoidable pain, suffering and even death to follow.  

Do we want that sort of blow-back? I hope not!
  
****

Selected excerpt:

"Ukraine’s spy agency, the SBU, is systematically rounding up and torturing suspected rebel sympathisers, the United Nations has told The Times.

Ivan Simonovic, UN assistant secretary-general for human rights, said that in some areas Kiev’s “disregard for human rights” had become entrenched and systemic and needed to be urgently addressed.

The UN report documents hundreds of cases of illegal detention, torture and ill-treatment of detainees — both by pro-Russian armed groups and by government agencies.

It draws attention to prisoner abuse and murders by pro-Russian rebel groups, but also exposes the scale and brutality of Ukraine’s government-backed torture programme..."

Please read the rest of the article at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/kiev-allows-torture-and-runs-secret-jails-says-un-vwlcrpsjn
  
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3 Facts That Will Change Everything You Believe About U.S. Foreign Policy.

Greg Krasovsky: If you want to find out or confirm the truth, always follow the money trail...'cause money don't lie, especially in global arms sales.

Selected excerpt:

"(ANTIMEDIA) The Unites States has the world’s most powerful military — and a huge budget to match it. In fact, the U.S. spends more on defense than the next seven countries’ military budgets combined. America’s navy has been branded a “Global Force for Good,” and U.S. military operations around the world are sold to the public as freedom-by-force operations (see: Operation Iraqi Freedom).

But what is the truth about America’s foreign policy? Is America truly a benevolent empire hell-bent on raining democracy-by-drone strikes around the world? To answer this question, we looked at America’s arms global deals and came to a rather disappointing  conclusion.

The United States is the largest exporter of freedom-promoting military weaponry in the world, accounting for 33 percent of total sales. This is not really surprising considering the U.S. is the world’s strongest superpower with a technological advantage in military equipment over every other country. What is surprising, however, is which countries the U.S. is exporting these arms to. The top three beneficiaries of American arms sales from 2011-2015 raise some serious red flags that may change the way people think about U.S. foreign policy."

Please read rest of this article at: http://theantimedia.org/3-facts-us-foreign-policy/

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Ukraine Declares War on Journalism.

Greg Krasovsky: When even The New York Times writes about press censorship, intimidation and persecution of journalists in Ukraine, you can just imagine what it's like to be a defenseless independent journalist, especially if your objective coverage appears to be against the Poroshenko regime and/or for pro-Russian eastern Ukrainian federalists ("separatists").

"KIEV, Ukraine — In July 2014, I went to Donetsk, a separatist-controlled region in eastern Ukraine, to cover the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. It was a dangerous place at the time.

The Ukrainian military and the rebels were shelling each other, and temperamental men with Kalashnikovs who had been known to kidnap journalists were everywhere.

Like many foreign reporters, I was there to relay what was happening to the remains of the downed flight’s 298 passengers and crew members.

Before I went to the crash site, I obtained accreditation from the separatists. This did not guarantee that I would be safe, but it was the only way to get past the armed checkpoints.

Now Ukraine has labeled me an accomplice in terrorism.

On May 7, the website Mirotvorets (“Peacemaker”), courtesy of anonymous hackers, published part of the separatists’ accreditation records. My name, email address and phone number were among those of more than 4,000 journalists, including freelancers like me, as well as correspondents from this newspaper, Reuters, the BBC and other outlets.

We were collectively labeled “terrorist collaborators” for gaining accreditation from the separatists.

The list’s publishers claimed not to know what the consequences would be of releasing this information, but it seemed clear that the intent was to encourage people to take action against the journalists on their own."

Please read the rest of the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/opinion/ukraine-declares-war-on-journalism.html

How Western aid enables graft addiction in Ukraine.

How Western aid enables graft addiction in Ukraine.

Greg Krasovsky: If Ukraine's foreign benefactors and well-wishers want to help reduce corruption in Ukraine, then the only way to do so is to stop turning a blind eye on corrupt politicians who are loyal to you.

Russia ignored the corruption of President Kuchma and Yanukovich's regime because he was considered pro-Russian. 

The U.S. and its allies have ignored the corruption in the administrations and governments of Presidents Yuschenko and Poroshenko because they are pro-U.S.

The result? Continued raiding of the Ukrainian government budget by politicians who know that their indiscretions will be overlooked abroad by their supporters. 

Playing musical chairs with Ukraine's government and cabinet of ministers will not help unless these folks are afraid of being detained and prosecuted abroad and their foreign assets (bank accounts, businesses and real estate) frozen.

But as long as these corrupt, albeit pro-US/EU/NATO politicians know that the United States and its allies will prefer their corruption to neutral or, heaven forbid, pro-Russian politicians, then you won't be able to tear them away from the Ukrainian state budget feeding troth - just like pigs.

In the meantime, ordinary Ukrainians remain poor and powerless. 
   
Selected excerpts:

"Over the past 25 years, Western donors have funneled billions of dollars into post-communist Ukraine, with two main goals: helping the country build a self-sustaining, competitive market economy, and laying the legal and regulatory groundwork for a law-governed state.

April 14 saw the appointment of yet another government dominated by insiders from Ukraine’s discredited post-communist establishment. This ended a political crisis sparked in February when Aivaras Abromavičius, the respected minister of the economy, resigned over persistent graft among his underlings.

Abromavičius’s resignation was just the latest confirmation that the hopes that accompanied the EuroMaidan movement of 2014 have crashed on the rocks of renewed asset-grabbing (see here, here and here). The gains from modest successes in economic reform have been washed out by impunity at the top along with a lack of progress in civil service reform and movement toward a law-based state.

These developments prompt the question: Can Western aid actually support the cause of reform in Ukraine? Or is Western assistance enabling an entrenched elite to continue stealing and avoid building a functioning state? 

...

Ukraine’s elites deploy the courts and police to raid companies they covet. Extortion, not public service, is the primary activity of state regulatory agencies. Even more damaging is the plundering of state assets. To be sure, the current government ended the practice by which private intermediaries reaped illicit billions from the exploitation of gas subsidies — at least for now. A previous government eliminated such intermediaries in 2009 only for the scheme to return under the next administration.

The looting of state-owned companies by oligarchs and state officials, including figures close to the president and former prime minister, remains very much alive (see here and here). Privatizing these enterprises is no solution; if history is any guide, they will be sold to government cronies for a song (seehere, here and here). Tax and customs fraud along with myriad subsidies have further enriched powerful insiders, hollowing out the state in the process.

Ukraine’s leaders might have constructed effective state institutions capable of preventing such plundering and fostered a market economy that can maximize tax revenue. But their virtually unlimited access to Western assistance has freed them from the need to do so. It has also heightened their interest in maintaining the status quo.

...

How to make sure that the aid will not continue enabling Ukraine’s acquisitive elite? How to ensure that the results will be different this time around? These questions rightly occupy the attention of the donor community.

Ukraine’s benefactors face two options. The first is to resume assistance in the event that the new government puts forward a reform plan and passes some legislation recommended by donors. This is the approach the West has followed in the past.

The other option is to refrain from resuming aid until the coming to power of a truly new leadership that excludes most people with previous high-level government experience..."

Please read rest of the Article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/05/05/how-western-aid-enables-graft-addiction-in-ukraine/


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Baiting the Bear: Russia and NATO.

Baiting the Bear: Russia and NATO
by Conn Hallinan at CounterPunch.org

  

Greg Krasovsky: I agree with U.S. Admiral Mark Ferguson, commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe, who is cited as saying “I don’t think many people understand the visceral way Russia views NATO and the European Union as an existential threat,”.

 

Selected excerpts:

"“Aggressive,” “revanchist,” “swaggering”: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words “Russia,” or “Vladimir Putin.” It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War.

The question is, why?

Is Russia really a military threat to the United States and its neighbors? Is it seriously trying to “revenge” itself for the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union? Is it actively trying to rebuild the old Soviet empire? The answers to these questions are critical, because, for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, several nuclear-armed powers are on the edge of a military conflict with fewer safeguards than existed 50 years ago.

...

First, it is the silly season—American elections—and bear baiting is an easy way to look “tough.” It is also a tried and true tactic of the U.S. armaments industry to keep their production lines humming and their bottom lines rising. The Islamic State is scary but you don’t need big-ticket weapons systems to fight it. The $1.5 trillion F-35s are for the Russkies, not terrorists.

There are also those who still dream of regime change in Russia. Certainly that was in the minds of the neo-cons when they used The National Endowment for Democracy and Freedom House to engineer—at the cost of $5 billion—the coup that toppled Ukraine into NATO’s camp. The New American Century gang and their think tanks—who brought you Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria—would to leverage Russia out of Central Asia.

The most frightening aspect of current East-West tension is that there is virtually no discussion of the subject, and when there is it consists largely of distorted history and gratuitous insults. Vladimir Putin might not be a nice guy, but the evidence he is trying to re-establish some Russian empire, and is a threat to his neighbors or the U.S., is thin to non-existent. His 2014 speech at the Valdai International Discussion Club is more common sense than bombast.

Expansionist? Russia has two bases in the Middle East and a handful in Central Asia. The U.S. has 662 bases around the world and Special Forces (SOF) deployed in between 70 and 90 countries at any moment. Last year SOFs were active in 147 countries. The U.S. is actively engaged in five wars and is considering a sixth in Libya. Russian military spending will fall next year, and the U.S. will out-spend Moscow by a factor of 10. Who in this comparison looks threatening?"

 

Please read the rest of article at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/04/baiting-the-bear-russia-and-nato/

As Russians Struggle to Pay Bills, Debt Collectors Mimic the Mob.

Greg Krasovsky: Sounds like Russia desperately needs a tougher version of the U.S. Fair Debt Collection Practices Act!

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Debt_Collection_Practices_Act

Things in Russia have gotten pretty bad on the debt collection front as the country's economy stagnates due to low oil prices and Western sanctions over Ukraine.

Just read this recent Moscow Times' article:

"Russia's Debt Collectors Bring Back Brutality of the 1990s.

According to Alexander Akhlomov, an executive at the United Credit Bureau, which monitors credit history, 11.5 million Russians held overdue debts by the end of December. Seven million people were more than 90 days in arrears. And an under-regulated, sometimes predatory collection industry is capitalizing on their predicament.
...
At the start of the decade, consumption was wild. "Time to have it all," said the credit companies in advertising campaigns. "Take it, you can return it later," the slogans crooned. And, as borrowing peaked and the economy stalled, a parallel collection industry grew up for those who couldn't pay.

Some banks began in-house debt recovery, but many began selling overdue loans to specialized agencies. These firms often operate on the edge of the law. "In most cases the activity of collectors is directly connected to criminality," the Prosecutor General's office said in a statement earlier this year. These agencies process more than 40 percent of bad debts, says Akhlomov — meaning that at least 3 million Russians are targeted."

See http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/russia-s-debt-collectors-bring-back-brutality-of-the-1990s/559229.html
 
But there's some light at the end of the tunnel, as Russia's Rights ombudsman supports full ban on debt collectors in Russia:

"Russia’s new Human Rights chief Tatiana Moskalkova has told reporters that she supports a ban on private debt collectors and at the same time wants to improve working conditions of court bailiffs.

“I would support the idea of stopping the work of collector agencies and significant changes in the work of court bailiffs – their structure, status, functions and equipment, because the current level of their salaries causes low quality of their work and a constant deficit of skilled professionals,” Interfax quoted Moskalkova as saying on Monday.

In February, chairs of both parliamentary chambers jointly drafted the bill proposing restrictions on debt collector agencies. The document directly bans debt collectors from using physical force or threats, deceit or damage to property.

The collectors are also not allowed to disclose the information about debtors – either through personal contacts with relatives or co-workers, or through various media, like the internet or outdoor advertising.

The document also allows collectors only two phone calls and one personal meeting with an individual debtor per week. It is specified that neither phone calls nor meetings can take place at nighttime.

In mid-March, the bill was approved by the government without any correction, according to mass media reports."

See https://www.rt.com/politics/340830-rights-ombudsman-supports-full-ban/

Strict government controls on debt collection practices in Russia are just as necessary in Russia as they are in the United States, as self-regulation in this industry may be just like asking foxes to regulate their raids on chicken coups:

See "New ethics code for debt collectors introduced in Russia.

A professional association for debt collectors has introduced new ethics code which prohibits the use of several excessive measures such as discussing debt with debtors’ children, Izvestia newspaper reported on Tuesday.

According to Izvestia, the National association of professional debt collector agencies (NAPCA) was behind the new ethics rules. Last code was introduced 8 years ago and contained vague definitions.

The new code prohibits the debt collectors from speaking to debtors in disrespectful manner, hiding cell number during the calls or mentioning security agencies when talking to debtors. One of the most important innovations of the code is prohibition to talk about debtor’s debt with children and “third parties” as well as prohibition to disrupt the functioning of medical, educational entities and infrastructure objects, Izvestia reported.

Other prohibitions mentioned in the code extend to sending messages to debtor’s friends in social networks, discussing debtor with his or her colleagues at work. The new code obligates debt collectors to draft strategic approach and only use approved speech templates."

at http://www.rapsinews.com/news/20160426/275969763.html


Selected Excerpt from the New York Times Article "As Russians Struggle to Pay Bills, Debt Collectors Mimic the Mob.":

"MOSCOW — They have stripped and sexually abused a woman, severely burned a toddler by firebombing a house and broken a woman’s pinkie as a warning. Gang members, bandits, mobsters? Not exactly. These are debt collectors, a peculiarly Russian variety that is flourishing amid the country’s economic turmoil.

As a punishing recession stretches into a second year, people struggling to make ends meet are resorting in growing numbers to borrowing at astronomical interest rates that many cannot possibly afford.

With unpaid debts mushrooming, collection has turned into something of a blood sport reminiscent of the shocking gang violence of the 1990s, with threats and violence by debt collectors spreading across the sprawling Russian hinterland largely unrestrained by public authorities.

“As a rule, small sums are involved in these cases, and it is easier to recover them by physical force,” said Danila S. Mikhalishchev, a debt collector turned consumer advocate. “It is easier to frighten people than to sue them.”

In 2015, the amount of unpaid debt surged by almost 50 percent to $15 billion, or about 13 percent of all personal debt, according to Alexander A. Akhlomov of the United Credit Bureau, a private organization that tracks credit ratings. A borrower making no payments for three months is considered to be in default. Just since March of last year, the number of Russians in that category has leapt to 7.5 million from 6 million, he said."

Please read rest of the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/30/world/europe/russia-debt-collectors-mob.html