Live Blog: The Panama Papers

Russian journalist Maria London, of the local Novosibirsk television channel NTN, has given an outraged editorial report on the Panama leak and the Russian officials named in it, contrasting their wealth with the Draconian cuts in Russian social services, including the recent closure of all special rehabilitation centers for the country's blind. She notes that the centers, which serve 80,000 blind Russians, cost less annually than the apartment that was recently linked to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.

Here is London's full report, in Russian:

A quick rundown in English of some of the personalities from the Balkans region who figure in the Panama papers.

If you read Serbian, here is in-depth coverage by RFE/RL's Balkans Service.

​Putin Says Panama Papers Part Of Western Plot To Destabilize Russia

By Mike Eckel

Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked the massive leak of financial and legal documents known as the Panama Papers that reportedly implicate several people close to him, saying the project was part of a Western government campaign to destabilize Russia.

In his first remarks since news organizations on April 3 began publishing articles based on the leak, Putin denied having any links to offshore accounts detailed in the trove of materials revealing vast networks of shell companies, some apparently being used to hide sizable wealth.

"Our opponents are above all concerned by the unity and consolidation of the Russian nation, our multinational Russian people," he told an April 7 forum for local and regional journalists in St. Petersburg. "They are attempting to rock us from within, to make us more obedient."

Among the names reportedly appearing in the documents is that of cellist Sergei Roldugin, an old friend of Putin's and reportedly a godfather to one of his daughters. Media reports on the Panama Papers have said Roldugin holds hundreds of millions of dollars in offshore assets.

Putin said he was "proud" of Roldugin.

"[Roldugin] has spent nearly all the money he has earned on buying musical instruments abroad and he brought them to Russia," he was quoted by the state-run TASS news agency as saying.

"We always welcome it when somebody does things like that, but he has gone much further," Putin added. "I know that he has spent several months already on efforts to have the instruments registered as property of government-financed institutions."

Putin himself is not named in the some 11.5 million documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, according to news organizations that have accessed the materials, a point the Russian president stressed.

"Your humble servant is not in them, so there is nothing to talk about," he said. "However, there is a specific purpose in it. What have they done? They have produced an information product. They have dug up some of my acquaintances and friends. I will talk about them too. They've poked here and there and mashed something up."

The Kremlin frequently criticizes what it portrays as a systematic campaign by Western governments and media outlets to undermine Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov addressed the Panama Papers days before the reports were published after being contacted by media outlets for comment. He claimed that an effort was under way to taint Putin and disrupt parliamentary elections scheduled for September.

At the St. Petersburg forum, Putin suggested that the U.S. government may have been behind the leak, and he made reference to an April 6 tweet by WikiLeaks, the organization that orchestrated the massive leak of U.S. State Department cables in 2010.

WikiLeaks suggested the U.S. government was involved because one of the Panama Papers' partners -- the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) -- has received funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), among other sources of financing.

"WikiLeaks has shown that behind, let's say, [the Panama Papers issue] there are certain U.S. officials and agencies," Putin said.

Putin's comments also reflect a tacit Kremlin endorsement of WikiLeaks and its controversial founder, Julian Assange, who has hosted a talk show on the Kremlin-funded TV channel RT, previously known as Russia Today.

Moscow has also given sanctuary to another well-known leaker of U.S. government documents, Edward Snowden.

In Washington, U.S. officials have denied involvement in the Panama Papers leak.

The Sarajevo-based OCCRP has denied any government involvement as well, saying USAID was only one source of funding and that receiving government money was important for doing projects in regions where few institutional donors exist.

"The idea that OCCRP is not an independent media outlet simply because it has taken some government money, while appealing to the world view of some, is simply not true," it said.

"We accept government money knowing this may affect our credibility with some, but we chose doing some good over not existing at all," it added.

Russian state media outlets have largely ignored reports about Putin's associates identified in the Panama Papers, focusing instead on the offshore dealings of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that were revealed in the leak.

Aleksei Navalny, the opposition leader who has investigated corruption among top Russian officials, ridiculed Putin's defense of Roldugin. He noted that the cellist's offshore companies reportedly engaged in suspicious commercial contracts that netted him substantial profits.

Putin is a "monstrous liar," Navalny wrote on his website on April 7.

In typically wry fashion, Putin opened his remarks joking about St. Petersburg's tumultuous role in Russian history, pointing out the city was home to three revolutions: 1905, February 1917, and then October 1917, when the Bolsheviks came to power.

"I hope the results of your efforts won't result in a fourth revolution," he said, "but just the opposite."

Making the rounds on Russian social media this morning, this handy bit of advice on how to save $2 billion if you don't happen to be a concert cellist who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's best friends. Here is the translation:

"$2 billion in $100 bills.

"It is hard for an ordinary person to imagine what $2 billion is.

"Here is an example:

"Imagine, for example, that you live in the time of Jesus and you decide to save $2 billion. So you begin to set aside $2,000 every day (that sum is several times more than the average salary in Russia). Empires rise and fall. The invasions of the Huns and the Mongols come. Byzantium flourishes and disappears. More empires are created and then collapse. Thousands of wars are fought and millions of people are killed. But you, every day, regularly set aside your $2,000.

But when 2016 rolls around, you still will not have managed to accumulate that sum -- you will still be $500 million short."

In the comments, one reader helpfully did the math: $2,000 times 365 days times 2016 years equals 1,471,680,000.

From RFE/RL's news desk this morning:

Top EU Official Threatens Sanctions On Panama, Other Tax Havens

A top European Union official threatened to sanction Panama and other nations if they don't cooperate to fight money laundering and tax evasion of the type seen in leaked documents this week.

The Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca helped thousands of rich and famous people as well as global corporations set up shell companies and offshore accounts to avoid taxes in their home states.

Because such accounts often hide the identity of the wealth holders, they are also used to launder money or pay bribes.

"People are fed up with these outrages," said Pierre Moscovici, who heads financial affairs for the 28-nation EU. "The amounts of money, the jurisdictions, and the names associated with this affair are frankly shocking."

Panama is listed by the EU as a country that is not cooperative on tax issues, and Moscovici urged the country to "rethink its position in this regard."

"Let's call a spade a spade: non-cooperative jurisdictions are tax havens," he said. The EU has to "be ready to hit them with appropriate sanctions if they refuse to change."

(Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP)

The Washington Post reports that the Panama papers revelations have sparked a major debate in Washington about how or whether to proceed with trade liberalization.

"Trade critics lambasted the administration as failing to heed their prior warnings and win sufficient financial reforms from Panama before signing a landmark free-trade deal in 2011, missing a chance to disrupt the elaborate financial arrangements disclosed in a massive leak of private data last weekend.

"But Obama aides and their allies responded forcefully Thursday, defending the U.S.-Panama trade pact as an instrument that the administration used to exert leverage and bring greater transparency to Panama’s shadowy offshore banking system."

British Prime Minister David Cameron continues to take heat from the Panama papers revelations, admitting now that he personally benefited from his father's tax-sheltered investments:

"Admitting it had been 'a difficult few days', the prime minister said he held the shares together with his wife, Samantha, from 1997 and during his time as leader of the opposition. They were sold in January 2010 for a profit of £19,000."

The Guardian, by the way, has aggregated all of its Panama papers coverage here.

Putin's Russia chooses not between guns and butter, but between guns and cellos:

​This article might be too technical for the average reader, but it sheds some light into how the Mossack Fonseca computer system might have been hacked.

"The MF website runs WordPress and is currently running a version of Revolution Slider that is vulnerable to attack and will grant a remote attacker a shell on the web server."

Here is an interview with McClatchy Newspapers journalist Tim Johnson, who has been working on the Panama papers project from the beginning. About 4 minutes into the interview, he responds to the WikiLeaks charge that the investigation is a U.S. plot to smear America's enemies.

"Baloney," Johnson says. "We went into this just like you would walk into the Library of Congress and find 20,000 boxes there. We had no idea what we would find."