Inside Vladimir Antonov’s Reckless Gamble with the Baltic Banks
As the second bank crashes and burns in Latvia costing millions to cash-strapped taxpayers, are there any lessons learned by the state bank regulators?
Life In The Fast Lane Ends For Antonov
Banker, entrepreneur and investor is how Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov describes himself on the business networking site LinkedIn. Currently out on police bail, 36-year-old British-Russian Antonov and his Lithuanian business partner Raimondas Baranauskas were arrested on November 24, 2011 in London…
Failed Liquid Gas Terminal Project
Why Can’t the Baltics Cooperate? Stories from the Failed Liquid Gas Terminal Project. A journalist from each Baltic country was asked to write an article on the topic, determining why the Baltic nations were unable to decide on a location…
Will Estonia get the rights to build an LNG terminal for all three Baltic countries?
Midsummer 2011. Estonian entrepreneur Heiti Hääl gets an offer which he cannot refuse: the local security police Kaitsepolitsei invite him for “a cup of coffee.”
Lack of trust disrupts gas project
“As a newcomer to politics I was shocked that there was so much distrust between the countries,” says Daniels Pavluts, minister of economics.
Why Lithuania wants to build it own LNG without listening neighbors?
Unlike Latvia and Estonia, the Lithuanian politicians chose a “tough” form of discussion when communicating with Gazprom.
Ukraine’s murky Black Sea tenders cast shadow over Norway
Interviews with Norwegian executives shed new light on murky Ukrainian deals in 2011, where rigs sold by Norwegian companies to unknown parties were resold to a Ukrainian state oil company in apparently fixed tenders for enormous mark-ups.
Russkiy Mir
In 2007, President Vladimir Putin established the Russkiy Mir foundation. Designed to promote Russian culture abroad, the foundation prides itself on being open. But Re:Baltica found consistent lack of transparency in the foundation’s activities in the Baltic states of Latvia,…
Who is the puppet and who is the master?
“I talk and negotiate with Riga, with Oleg Solodov and others. Even the money that we [the City of Tallinn] pay goes to Riga, not to Tallinn”, says Lev Vaino, referring to the 425,000 euro contract for the production and…