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The Bankers Want Putin’s Head

By Ariadna Theokopoulos

The international bankers want Putin’s head and they have $20,000,000,000 painful reasons. A recent revelation by a French source details Putin’s incredible double coup that made Russia gain $20 billion in a few days and recover most of the shares owned by West European and American investors in Russia’s largest energy companies.

The foreign (American and European) ownership of a large portion of shares in the energy industry meant that almost half of the revenues of the gas and oil industry did not go into the coffers of the Russian Federation, but into the pockets of Western financial ‘sharks,’ as the French commentator says.

At the beginning of of the Crimean crisis, the rouble started to fall but the Central Bank of Russia did nothing to prop it up. Rumors started spreading that Russia simply did not possess the reserves necessary to maintain the rouble.

These rumors and Putin’s declarations of intent to support the Russian-speaking population of Ukraine led to a plunge in the price of the shares in Russian energy companies, which made the “sharks” rush to sell their shares before they might lose their entire value. Putin waited a whole week, apparently doing nothing but smiling at press conferences (which was interpreted as trying to show a brave face), but when the shares almost touched bottom he gave instructions to rapidly buy them up from European and American owners.

When the “sharks” realized they had been had it was already too late: the shares were all in Russia’s hands. Not only did Russia gained $20 billion in only a few days, it also brought home the market shares of its industries. Now the revenues from oil and gas will not stay stay in Russia rather than run abroad but the rouble has been restored without having to touch Russia’s gold reserves and the “sharks” have been thwarted.