News / Russia

Panama Papers part of Western plot to weaken Russia: Putin

Thursday, 07 April 2016 6:01 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 07 April 2016 6:00 PM ]

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a media forum of the All-Russia People's Front in St. Petersburg, Russia, on April 7, 2016. ©Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed having any links to offshore accounts mentioned in the leaks dubbed Panama Papers, saying the files are part of Western efforts to undermine Moscow.

Putin told a media forum in St. Petersburg on Thursday that although his own name did not figure in the documents, media had sought instead to attribute allegations to his inner circle under a US-led disinformation campaign.

"Our opponents are above all concerned by the unity and consolidation of the Russian nation. They are attempting to rock us from within, to make us more pliant," he said.

The Panama Papers are a leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records, which were obtained from an anonymous source last week, contain information on 215,000 offshore entities connected to individuals in more than 200 countries and territories.

The files claimed that cellist Sergei Roldugin, Putin’s long-time friend and godfather to his older daughter, ran a $2 billion offshore empire.

Russia's then President Dmitry Medvedev (R) and then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (front) listen to Sergei Roldugin, art director of St. Petersburg House of Music, during an excursion to the house in this picture taken on November 21, 2009. ©Reuters

Putin said the Panama Papers found a few of his "acquaintances and friends... and scraped up something from there and stuck it together."

The Russian leader said he was proud of people like Roldugin, who he said had spent nearly all his earnings on buying musical instruments and donating money to state musical institutions.

Panama Papers caused Iceland’s Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson to step down after it was revealed that he and his wife had bought an offshore firm in the British Virgin Islands. The premier, however, denied the charges against him.

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