#SEVER KOSOVA

[mariacallous]

Pristina Basic Prosecution announced on Thursday that seven suspects have been arrested for posting personal information, photos and videos of women and girls without their consent in a group on messaging app Telegram called Albkings, which had over 100,000 members.

Some of the arrests were made shortly after BIRN reported to the Kosovo Police and the Pristina Basic Prosecutor’s Office that the phone number of a BIRN journalist had been shared in the Albanian-language Telegram group.

“In close cooperation with the Police Directorate of Cyber ​​Investigations, we managed to finally close this group,” case prosecutor Elza Bajrami told media on Thursday.

Bajrami said that “the Basic Prosecutor’s Office in Pristina is continuing on several other lines of investigation, because thanks to the collection of information, it is suspected that the same persons may be perpetrators of several other criminal offences”.

He explained that the Albkings group had been closed before but then reopened twice. 

On May 6, 2024, the personal phone number of a BIRN journalist, whose identity BIRN will not disclose for security reasons, was shared by members of the Telegram group without her authorisation.

The phone number of a woman journalist from Kosovo media outlet Klan Kosova was also shared in the Albkings group. 

Pristina Chief Prosecutor Zejnullah Gashi told media on Thursday that many intimate photos and videos were shared in the Telegram group.

Gashi said that “there is a real possibility that in this case, investigations will be expanded” and more people might be arrested for a range of criminal offences.

One of the group’s alleged administrators, identified only by the initials E.N., was previously arrested on April 16, and has been remanded in custody for two months.

On April 23, a woman with the initials E.S., a second alleged administrator of the group, was also arrested and remanded in custody for two months.

The alleged main administrator and creator of the Telegram group, identified only as F.P., was arrested on May 23 and remanded in custody for a month.

The first person to be detained in relation to the group was an 18-year-old, named as L.B., who was arrested in February this year for sharing private photos of an unidentified girl.

By the time of his arrest, around 112,000 members had joined the group where personal data, intimate, derogatory, and ‘deep fake’ videos and photos, mainly of women and girls, are being shared.

By February 9, 2024, 20,993 photos and 19,516 videos had been shared. The group went private soon afterwards. 

In March this year, based on content analysis and interviews with experts, BIRN found that TikTok also is being used across the Balkans to abuse and humiliate women and girls online.

Over the course of several weeks, BIRN identified 427 videos posted between September 2020 and November 2023 that humiliate girls and women.

The videos were shared by accounts in Kosovo, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia. In total, the videos were viewed more than 30 million times, each garnering dozens, sometimes hundreds of abusive comments.

Several of the videos that BIRN identified that were shared on TikTok by accounts in Kosovo were also shared in the Albkings Telegram group.

[brettforrestnews]

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Bracing for US sanctions, the Budapest-based, Russian-led International Investment Bank’s (IIB) former head planned to move his offshore assets from tax havens in the British Isles to Dubai.

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million. 

According to internal bank documents obtained by , Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced to quit the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing  both to become undesirable in the West and to some clear support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution. ( has previously published a detailed article on this based on hundreds of IIB’s leaked internal documents).

Among these documents were emails and attachments that shed insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. There is evidence of this from years ago: in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, found dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change of geopolitical situation due to the war. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, told that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions. 

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavelfollowed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board. 

Before publishing this article, we have sent requests for comment to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, but none of them replied. 

14 million pounds sterling

On 15 December 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received really bad news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The devastating effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that, in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU. 

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown indocuments that are among the internal IIB files originating from a 2023 February leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife at least forwarded a number of private correspondence to it. 

The wife, Natalya Kosova, was, íon December 6, already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), also reveals that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, which the file name suggests is dated December 14, 2022, also sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document  is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form, which is among the leaked documents, says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.  

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, among other things, told On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, we  know that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’s correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. https://offshoreleaks.icij.org/nodes/13001383 An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants. 

And in a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey— another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” wrote Ollerenshaw. 

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much vodka, became aggressive and was thrown out of the wedding party, according to media reports.

Kosov didn’t leave at his own will

At the end of last year, Nikolay Kosov had the headache not only of relocating his offshore assets, but also of losing his senior position at IIB. His mandate as bank chairman expired on September 17, 2022 and, according to the bank’s official website, no one has taken his place since then. The IIB has not made any public announcement about Kosov’s departure or his successor.

News of Kosov’s disappearance from IIB reached last year, when we asked the bank when and for what reason Kosov left the bank’s leadership. “In accordance with the Statutory Documents of IIB the term of the mandate of the Chairperson of the Management Board ended on September 17, 2022. Appointment of a new Chairperson lies within the responsibilities of the Board of Governors. The Bank shall await a decision on that matter. Until then responsibilities inside IIB are divided between existing members of the Management Board,” the bank wrote in response to our request at the time.

The leaked documents show that there were attempts by IIB’s management to keep Kosov as head of the bank, but these were unsuccessful. Indeed, at last year’s IIB board of governors meeting, Kosov, whose mandate starting in 2012 had expired, was to be re-elected as acting chairman for another two years. However, the proposal was defeated by opposition from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, which announced their withdrawal from the bank because of the war in Ukraine.  

According to a December 2022 document—minutes of a meeting of the board of governors—Russia, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam voted in favor of Kosov’s re-election, while the four countries that left voted against it. Although this still gave Kosov 68.5 percent of the vote, the bank’s rules required a three-quarters qualified majority. Kosov’s unsuccessful re-election follows a letter last September in which Romania formally indicated that it did not want a Russian president at the helm of the bank. “That statement by Romania is racist. They […] are against anyone who has a Russian nationality. I find it utterly disgusting, and unfortunately not surprising,” IIB’s chief financial officer Elliott Auckland commented on Romania’s position.

According to internal emails from September, bank staff then wondered whether they could hide the fact that there was no bank chairman, or if they had to make the news public. According to the correspondence, the bank was aware that this news would have a negative impact on the bank’s financial prospects. “We didn’t just change our CEO but failed to elect a new one,” a senior Russian IIB official wrote. “From the point of view of corporate governance it should be considered as a major event. However, I propose to avoid the announce of the event, if there is no direct obligations,” wrote another staff member.

“It looks horrible for us. If we don’t have to legally publish, I am against publishing. We will create a media storm most likely, and ratings will come under pressure at a sensitive time. Our task is to not draw attention to ourselves, and quietly manage our problems,” argued Elliott Auckland. One of the bank’s Hungarian managers agreed with him and urged others to remain silent. “If we announce, there will be noise around us again. It is not good for our rating discussion,” he wrote.

KGB family

According to the leaked files, a formal document was forwarded to Kosov from the bank on November 28, informing him of the cancellation of his powers as bank chairman. Kosov wrote that he needed this to remove himself and his wife from the list of diplomats accredited to Budapest. This list is maintained by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFA) and includes persons with full diplomatic immunity. These are the people who, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, enjoy a number of advantages when traveling, shopping (tax exemption) and, most importantly, have immunity from investigations and criminal proceedings in the host country.

When the IIB’s headquarters relocated from Moscow to Hungary, the biggest controversy was caused by the fact that the Orbán government would have granted the institution and its staff extensive diplomatic immunity. The United States and other NATO allies feared that the IIB’s diplomatic immunity could have been used to allow Russia to deploy intelligence officers in Budapest. has previously revealed that the Orbán government, bowing to US pressure, eventually agreed to a compromise to limit the diplomatic privileges granted to the bank. 

No concrete information has been published on the active relationship between the IIB and Russian intelligence, but the institution is often referred to as a “spy bank” in Hungarian and international media. Apart from the controversy surrounding diplomatic immunities, the main reason for this is the family background of Kosov himself: the former bank chairman’s parents were members of the Soviet Union’s intelligence elite and spied, among other places, in the United States. Kosov’s mother, Yelena Kosova, was officially the first female Soviet diplomat at the Soviet mission to the UN in New York—unofficially, she in fact helped steal US nuclear secrets.  

Kosov’s father, Nikolay Kosov Sr., worked alongside her as a Soviet newspaper correspondent in New York, but he was in fact a spy too. Later, when the 1956 revolution was crushed, Kosov was part of a KGB task force sent to Hungary. KGB chief Ivan Serov directed agents to Budapest who, because of their previous Western contacts, could be involved in uncovering the alleged Western conspiracy behind the Hungarian revolution. Later, in the 1970s, Kosov Sr. became the KGB’s liaison officer in Budapest, so Kosov Jr. also spent his youth in Hungary.

Nikolay Kosov Jr. later became a diplomat himself in the 1980s at the Soviet Union’s embassy in London, where he worked—and became friends—with Andrey Kostin, who influenced him to switch to banking. As has previously reported, Kostin, a leading figure in the Russian financial elite, became chairman of Vneshekonombank and later VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), while maintaining a close working relationship with the Kosov family. In 1998, for example, he took Nikolay Kosov as first vice-president of Vneshekonombank and then, as head of VTB, became the boss of Nikolay Kosov’s son, Pavel Kosov, who also became vice-president.

Pavel Kosov is not on any Western sanctions lists, but, as of October 2022, he is under sanctions by Ukraine’s National Security Council and its anti-corruption authority. Pavel Kosov is under sanctions because of his position as a state official—he is currently CEO of Russian state-owned agricultural lender Rosagroleasing. He was personally received and praised by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin last June for the work of Rosagroleasing, including how they are helping to replace European imports.

Nikolay Kosov was exempt from Western sanctions until April 12, when the Treasury of the United States placed him on the sanctions list along with the IIB and two of its executives. This means that if the former bank chairman had any movable or real estate property in the US, he would no longer have access to it, nor would he be allowed to do business with US persons or entities.

Kosov was added to the US sanctions list despite the fact that he has not been officially a bank chairman since September last year. But it is not at all clear what his current role is, and internal emails show that he was still using his official bank email address at the end of last year. 

Moreover, in the aforementioned document in which Kosov was asked to reply to the Dubai wealth adviser on whether he was a politically exposed person, he made contradictory statements about his own position. In one place, he referred to no longer holding a high position at the IIB, and in the next line he described himself as an active bank chairman. 

In addition to Kosov, last Wednesday the IIB was separately placed on the US sanctions list. The decision was announced at a press conference by US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who described the IIB as a tool for Moscow to increase its influence in Hungary and the region. 

The day after the announcement, the Hungarian government announced that Hungary would also leave the bank—the last of the EU member states to do so. In response to this, the IIB announced on April 19 that it would leave Budapest and move its headquarters back to Russia, as its operations had become impossible.

[newstimes-24]

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million.

Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced to quit the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing to become undesirable in the West while still maintaining some support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution.

Among leaked internal bank documents were emails and attachments that shed insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. Evidence from years ago shows that in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, there were dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change of geopolitical situation due to the war. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, mentioned that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions.

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavel followed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board.

Requests for comment sent to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, went unanswered.

On December 15, 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received devastating news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that, in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU.

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown in documents originating from a February 2023 leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife at least forwarded a number of private correspondences to it.

Natalya Kosova was, on December 6, already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), also revealing that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, dated December 14, 2022, sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, mentioned. On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, it is known that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’ correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants.

In a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey—another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” wrote Ollerenshaw.

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much and behaved so inappropriately that Pavel Kosov’s bride demanded that he be kicked out of the reception. The episode, revealed by the bride in a 2009 TV interview, was soon picked up by the tabloids.

Pavel Kosov, who is also linked to numerous offshore companies in the Panama Papers, has since followed in his father’s footsteps: in 2022, he was, among other things, chairman of the board of directors of the Russian Industrial Development Fund and deputy chairman of the board of directors of a Russian bank.

His father, meanwhile, has spent most of his life as a senior executive in the banking world, a career that may have been partly influenced by his background: Kosov is the son of senior Russian intelligence officers. His father was deputy chairman of the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s foreign intelligence service, and his mother was a former KGB operative who became an executive in a state-owned company.

After the end of the socialist era, in 1993, Nikolay Kosov became deputy chairman of Vnesheconombank, a Russian state-owned bank that financed various government projects, from supporting Russian foreign policy to investing in high-tech companies. Later, in 2012, he became chairman of the board of directors of the IIB, which had been a lesser-known international financial institution until then, but which soon began to rise.

This was mainly due to the fact that in 2015, the IIB moved its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest, thanks to the support of the Hungarian government. Kosov thus returned to his childhood roots, as he spent most of his childhood in Budapest. He lived in the Hungarian capital because his father was head of the KGB branch in Budapest in the 1970s. His mother was also a Soviet spy, working under the cover of a journalist for the Novosti news agency. According to the dossier, she was “even tasked with obtaining some kind of poison” in order to defend a senior Soviet official.

However, the Kosovo family’s ties to Hungary did not last long this time. Although the IIB managed to become known in the country mainly as a Russian spy bank after moving to Budapest, it was not bothered by the government for a long time. But then the war in Ukraine broke out. The IIB was on the verge of collapse, and at the same time, the West no longer looked kindly on Russians doing business in the EU. The Hungarian government also came under a lot of pressure to sever ties with the Russian bank.

It is not known whether Kosov and his wife have managed to move their assets to Dubai in the meantime. What is certain, however, is that the board of governors of the IIB, consisting of finance ministers and other senior representatives from the member states, elected a new chairman of the bank’s management board on March 9 this year, the same day the Kosovs’ private contracts in Dubai were being drafted. Since 2012, the post has been held by Nikolay Kosov, but he was no longer on the list of candidates.

The IIB has not reported this change on its website and has been publishing statements from Kosov since then as if nothing had happened. The post of acting chairman of the board of directors was temporarily taken over by IIB Deputy Chairman Georgy Potapov, the bank said in response to questions from international media. They said the reason for Kosov’s resignation was that he had reached retirement age. Potapov was later added to the US sanctions list.

Nikolay Kosov’s tenure officially ended on March 16, and just one month later, the United States imposed sanctions on him. They justified the move by saying that the IIB “has enabled Russia to expand its intelligence presence in Europe, generating threats to European security and stability” and that “Kosov has a long history with Russian intelligence and was instrumental in enabling the IIB’s malign behavior.”

Kosov did not respond to questions from international media sent to his private email address.

[24trendnews]

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million.

According to internal bank documents obtained by 24trendnews, Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced that it was quitting the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing both to become undesirable in the West and to some clear support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution.

Among these documents were emails and attachments that provided insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. There is evidence of this from years ago: in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, 24trendnews found dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change in the geopolitical situation due to the war in Ukraine. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, told 24trendnews that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions.

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavel followed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board.

Before publishing this article, we sent requests for comment to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, but none of them replied.

14 million pounds sterling

On 15 December 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received really bad news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The devastating effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU.

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown in documents that are among the internal IIB files originating from a 2023 February leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife forwarded a number of private messages to it.

On December 6, the wife, Natalya Kosova, was already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), and also reveals that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, which the file name suggests is dated December 14, 2022, also sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form, which is among the leaked documents, says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, among other things, told 24trendnews. On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, we know that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’ correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants.

And in a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey— another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” Ollerenshaw wrote.

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much vodka, became aggressive and was thrown out of the wedding party, according to media reports.

Kosov didn’t leave at his own will

At the end of last year, Nikolay Kosov had the headache not only of relocating his offshore assets, but also of losing his senior position at the IIB. His mandate as bank chairman expired on September 17, 2022 and, according to the bank’s official website, no one has taken his place since then. The IIB has not made any public announcement about Kosov’s departure or his successor.

News of Kosov’s disappearance from IIB reached 24trendnews last year, when we asked the bank when and for what reason Kosov left the bank’s leadership. “In accordance with the Statutory Documents of IIB the term of the mandate of the Chairperson of the Management Board ended on September 17, 2022. Appointment of a new Chairperson lies within the responsibilities of the Board of Governors. The Bank shall await a decision on that matter. Until then responsibilities inside IIB are divided between existing members of the Management Board,” the bank wrote in response to our request at the time.

The leaked documents show that there were attempts by IIB’s management to keep Kosov as head of the bank, but these were unsuccessful. Indeed, at last year’s IIB board of governors meeting, Kosov, whose mandate which started in 2012 had expired, was to be re-elected as acting chairman for another two years. However, the proposal was defeated by opposition from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, which announced their withdrawal from the bank because of the war in Ukraine.

According to a December 2022 document—minutes of a meeting of the board of governors—Russia, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam voted in favor of Kosov’s re-election, while the four countries that left voted against it. Although this still gave Kosov 68.5 percent of the vote, the bank’s rules required a three-quarters qualified majority. Kosov’s unsuccessful re-election follows a letter from last September in which Romania formally indicated that it did not want a Russian president at the helm of the bank. “That statement by Romania is racist. They […] are against anyone who has a Russian nationality. I find it utterly disgusting, and unfortunately not surprising,” IIB’s chief financial officer Elliott Auckland commented on Romania’s position.

According to internal emails from September, bank staff then wondered whether they could hide the fact that there was no bank chairman, or if they had to make the news public. According to the correspondence, the bank was aware that this news would have a negative impact on the bank’s financial prospects. “We didn’t just change our CEO but failed to elect a new one,” a senior Russian IIB official wrote. “From the point of view of corporate governance it should be considered as a major event. However, I propose to avoid the announcement of the event, if there are no direct obligations,” wrote another staff member.

“It looks horrible for us. If we don’t have to legally publish, I am against publishing. We will create a media storm most likely, and ratings will come under pressure at a sensitive time. Our task is to not draw attention to ourselves, and quietly manage our problems,” argued Elliott Auckland. One of the bank’s Hungarian managers agreed with him and urged others to remain silent. “If we announce, there will be noise around us again. It is not good for our rating discussion,” he wrote.

A KGB family

According to the leaked files, a formal document was forwarded to Kosov from the bank on November 28, informing him of the cancellation of his powers as bank chairman. Kosov wrote that he needed this to remove himself and his wife from the list of diplomats accredited to Budapest. This list is maintained by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFA) and includes persons with full diplomatic immunity. These are the people who, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, enjoy a number of advantages when traveling, shopping (tax exemption) and, most importantly, have immunity from investigations and criminal proceedings in the host country.

When the IIB’s headquarters relocated from Moscow to Hungary, the biggest controversy was caused by the fact that the Orbán government would have granted the institution and its staff extensive diplomatic immunity. The United States and other NATO allies feared that the IIB’s diplomatic immunity could have been used to allow Russia to deploy intelligence officers in Budapest. 24trendnews has previously revealed that the Orbán government, bowing to US pressure, eventually agreed to a compromise to limit the diplomatic privileges granted to the bank.

No concrete information has been published on the active relationship between the IIB and Russian intelligence, but the institution is often referred to as a “spy bank” in Hungarian and international media. Apart from the controversy surrounding diplomatic immunities, the main reason for this is the family background of Kosov himself: the former bank chairman’s parents were members of the Soviet Union’s intelligence elite and spied, among other places, in the United States. Kosov’s mother, Yelena Kosova, was officially the first female Soviet diplomat at the Soviet mission to the UN in New York—unofficially, she in fact helped steal US nuclear secrets.

Kosov’s father, Nikolay Kosov Sr., worked alongside her as a Soviet newspaper correspondent in New York, but he was in fact a spy too. Later, when the 1956 revolution was crushed, Kosov was part of a KGB task force sent to Hungary. KGB chief Ivan Serov directed agents to Budapest who, because of their previous Western contacts, could be involved in uncovering the alleged Western conspiracy behind the Hungarian revolution. Later, in the 1970s, Kosov Sr. became the KGB’s liaison officer in Budapest, so Kosov Jr. also spent his youth in Hungary.

Nikolay Kosov Jr. later became a diplomat himself in the 1980s at the Soviet Union’s embassy in London, where he worked—and became friends—with Andrey Kostin, who influenced him to switch to banking. As 24trendnews has previously reported, Kostin, a leading figure in the Russian financial elite, became chairman of Vneshekonombank and later VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), while maintaining a close working relationship with the Kosov family. In 1998, for example, he took Nikolay Kosov as first vice-president of Vneshekonombank and then, as head of VTB, became the boss of Nikolay Kosov’s son, Pavel Kosov, who also became vice-president.

Pavel Kosov is not on any Western sanctions lists, but, as of October 2022, he is under sanctions by Ukraine’s National Security Council and its anti-corruption authority. Pavel Kosov is under sanctions because of his position as a state official—he is currently CEO of Russian state-owned agricultural lender Rosagroleasing. He was personally received and praised by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin last June for the work of Rosagroleasing, including how they are helping to replace European imports.

Nikolay Kosov was exempt from Western sanctions until April 12, when the Treasury of the United States placed him on the sanctions list along with the IIB and two of its executives. This means that if the former bank chairman had any movable or real estate property in the US, he would no longer have access to it, nor would he be allowed to do business with US persons or entities.

Kosov was added to the US sanctions list despite the fact that he has not been officially a bank chairman since September last year. But it is not at all clear what his current role is, and internal emails show that he was still using his official bank email address at the end of last year.

Moreover, in the aforementioned document in which Kosov was asked to reply to the Dubai wealth adviser on whether he was a politically exposed person, he made contradictory statements about his own position. In one place, he referred to no longer holding a high position at the IIB, and in the next line he described himself as an active bank chairman.

In addition to Kosov, last Wednesday the IIB was separately placed on the US sanctions list.The decision was announced at a press conference by US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who described the IIB as a tool for Moscow to increase its influence in Hungary and the region.

The day after the announcement, the Hungarian government announced that Hungary would also leave the bank—the last of the EU member states to do so. In response to this, the IIB announced on April 19 that it would leave Budapest and move its headquarters back to Russia, as its operations had become impossible.

[indonesiatimesnews]

Bracing for US sanctions, the Budapest-based, Russian-led International Investment Bank’s (IIB) former head planned to move his offshore assets from tax havens in the British Isles to Dubai.

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million.

According to internal bank documents obtained by Direkt36, Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced to quit the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing both to become undesirable in the West and to some clear support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution.

Among these documents were emails and attachments that shed insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. There is evidence of this from years ago: in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, Direkt36 found dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change of geopolitical situation due to the war. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, told Direkt36 that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions.

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavel followed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board.

Before publishing this article, we have sent requests for comment to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, but none of them replied.

14 million pounds sterling

On 15 December 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received really bad news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The devastating effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that, in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU.

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown in documents that are among the internal IIB files originating from a 2023 February leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife at least forwarded a number of private correspondence to it.

The wife, Natalya Kosova, was on December 6, already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), also reveals that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, which the file name suggests is dated December 14, 2022, also sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form, which is among the leaked documents, says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, among other things, told Direkt36. On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, we know that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’s correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants.

And in a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey— another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” wrote Ollerenshaw.

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much vodka, became aggressive and was thrown out of the wedding party.

Kosov didn’t leave at his own will At the end of last year, Nikolay Kosov had the headache not only of relocating his offshore assets, but also of losing his senior position at IIB. His mandate as bank chairman expired on September 17, 2022 and, according to the bank’s official website, no one has taken his place since then. The IIB has not made any public announcement about Kosov’s departure or his successor.

News of Kosov’s disappearance from IIB reached Direkt36 last year, when we asked the bank when and for what reason Kosov left the bank’s leadership. “In accordance with the Statutory Documents of IIB the term of the mandate of the Chairperson of the Management Board ended on September 17, 2022. Appointment of a new Chairperson lies within the responsibilities of the Board of Governors. The Bank shall await a decision on that matter. Until then responsibilities inside IIB are divided between existing members of the Management Board,” the bank wrote in response to our request at the time.

The leaked documents show that there were attempts by IIB’s management to keep Kosov as head of the bank, but these were unsuccessful. Indeed, at last year’s IIB board of governors meeting, Kosov, whose mandate starting in 2012 had expired, was to be re-elected as acting chairman for another two years. However, the proposal was defeated by opposition from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, which announced their withdrawal from the bank because of the war in Ukraine.

According to a December 2022 document—minutes of a meeting of the board of governors—Russia, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam voted in favor of Kosov’s re-election, while the four countries that left voted against it. Although this still gave Kosov 68.5 percent of the vote, the bank’s rules required a three-quarters qualified majority. Kosov’s unsuccessful re-election follows a letter last September in which Romania formally indicated that it did not want a Russian president at the helm of the bank. “That statement by Romania is racist. They […] are against anyone who has a Russian nationality. I find it utterly disgusting, and unfortunately not surprising,” IIB’s chief financial officer Elliott Auckland commented on Romania’s position.

According to internal emails from September, bank staff then wondered whether they could hide the fact that there was no bank chairman, or if they had to make the news public. According to the correspondence, the bank was aware that this news would have a negative impact on the bank’s financial prospects. “We didn’t just change our CEO but failed to elect a new one,” a senior Russian IIB official wrote. “From the point of view of corporate governance it should be considered as a major event. However, I propose to avoid the announce of the event, if there is no direct obligations,” wrote another staff member.

“It looks horrible for us. If we don’t have to legally publish, I am against publishing. We will create a media storm most likely, and ratings will come under pressure at a sensitive time. Our task is to not draw attention to ourselves, and quietly manage our problems,” argued Elliott Auckland. One of the bank’s Hungarian managers agreed with him and urged others to remain silent. “If we announce, there will be noise around us again. It is not good for our rating discussion,” he wrote.

KGB family According to the leaked files, a formal document was forwarded to Kosov from the bank on November 28, informing him of the cancellation of his powers as bank chairman. Kosov wrote that he needed this to remove himself and his wife from the list of diplomats accredited to Budapest. This list is maintained by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFA) and includes persons with full diplomatic immunity. These are the people who, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, enjoy a number of advantages when traveling, shopping (tax exemption) and, most importantly, have immunity from investigations and criminal proceedings in the host country.

When the IIB’s headquarters relocated from Moscow to Hungary, the biggest controversy was caused by the fact that the Orbán government would have granted the institution and its staff extensive diplomatic immunity. The United States and other NATO allies feared that the IIB’s diplomatic immunity could have been used to allow Russia to deploy intelligence officers in Budapest. Direkt36 has previously revealed that the Orbán government, bowing to US pressure, eventually agreed to a compromise to limit the diplomatic privileges granted to the bank.

No concrete information has been published on the active relationship between the IIB and Russian intelligence, but the institution is often referred to as a “spy bank” in Hungarian and international media. Apart from the controversy surrounding diplomatic immunities, the main reason for this is the family background of Kosov himself: the former bank chairman’s parents were members of the Soviet Union’s intelligence elite and spied, among other places, in the United States. Kosov’s mother, Yelena Kosova, was officially the first female Soviet diplomat at the Soviet mission to the UN in New York—unofficially, she in fact helped steal US nuclear secrets.

Kosov’s father, Nikolay Kosov Sr., worked alongside her as a Soviet newspaper correspondent in New York, but he was in fact a spy too. Later, when the 1956 revolution was crushed, Kosov was part of a KGB task force sent to Hungary. KGB chief Ivan Serov directed agents to Budapest who, because of their previous Western contacts, could be involved in uncovering the alleged Western conspiracy behind the Hungarian revolution. Later, in the 1970s, Kosov Sr. became the KGB’s liaison officer in Budapest, so Kosov Jr. also spent his youth in Hungary.

Nikolay Kosov Jr. later became a diplomat himself in the 1980s at the Soviet Union’s embassy in London, where he worked—and became friends—with Andrey Kostin, who influenced him to switch to banking. As Direkt36 has previously reported, Kostin, a leading figure in the Russian financial elite, became chairman of Vneshekonombank and later VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), while maintaining a close working relationship with the Kosov family. In 1998, for example, he took Nikolay Kosov as first vice-president of Vneshekonombank and then, as head of VTB, became the boss of Nikolay Kosov’s son, Pavel Kosov, who also became vice-president.

Pavel Kosov is not on any Western sanctions lists, but, as of October 2022, he is under sanctions by Ukraine’s National Security Council and its anti-corruption authority. Pavel Kosov is under sanctions because of his position as a state official—he is currently CEO of Russian state-owned agricultural lender Rosagroleasing. He was personally received and praised by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin last June for the work of Rosagroleasing, including how they are helping to replace European imports.

Nikolay Kosov was exempt from Western sanctions until April 12, when the Treasury of the United States placed him on the sanctions list along with the IIB and two of its executives. This means that if the former bank chairman had any movable or real estate property in the US, he would no longer have access to it, nor would he be allowed to do business with US persons or entities.

Kosov was added to the US sanctions list despite the fact that he has not been officially a bank chairman since September last year. But it is not at all clear what his current role is, and internal emails show that he was still using his official bank email address at the end of last year.

Moreover, in the aforementioned document in which Kosov was asked to reply to the Dubai wealth adviser on whether he was a politically exposed person, he made contradictory statements about his own position. In one place, he referred to no longer holding a high position at the IIB, and in the next line he described himself as an active bank chairman.

In addition to Kosov, last Wednesday the IIB was separately placed on the US sanctions list. The decision was announced at a press conference by US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who described the IIB as a tool for Moscow to increase its influence in Hungary and the region.

The day after the announcement, the Hungarian government announced that Hungary would also leave the bank—the last of the EU member states to do so. In response to this, the IIB announced on April 19 that it would leave Budapest and move its headquarters back to Russia, as its operations had become impossible.

[headtopictimes]

BATTERED BY SANCTIONS AND SHAREHOLDER EXITS, IS END NIGH FOR RUSSIAN ‘SPY BANK’ IN HUNGARY?

The clock is ticking for the Budapest-based International Investment Bank as its desperate search for cash or new shareholders looks increasingly hopeless.

February could prove to be a defining month in the more than 50-year history of the Russian-led International Investment Bank (IIB) – one which a growing number of experts point to as signalling the beginning of the end for this strangest and murkiest of financial institutions.

A casualty of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, the IIB’s operations have been holed by the international financial sanctions imposed on Russia and the exit of several shareholders from Central and Southeast Europe since the invasion. This has further undermined the Hungarian government’s balancing act of cosying up to Russia, for example by controversially allowing the IIB to establish its new headquarters in Budapest, while also acting as a member of the EU and NATO.

The bad news began on February 17 with a curt statement from the development bank about a “criminal hacker attack” that had resulted “in an unauthorized mass fake email distribution on behalf of certain IIB officials.”

This was then followed on February 25 by some ominous-sounding comments from Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, who in response to journalist enquiries about the viability of the IIB admitted that “it’s in an extremely difficult situation [and] I don’t know if it’s possible to save the bank.”

On February 27, the independent Hungarian news outlet Hvg.hu, citing internal IIB documents obtained through the anonymous hack, said a senior IIB executive had warned in a letter to the bank’s management in mid-December that the bank could soon face insolvency. The assets of the IIB had been frozen by Euroclear – a Belgium-based financial services company that specialises in settling domestic and cross-border securities transactions – after the Russian invasion. In the letter, the executive predicted “such a severe deficit for the first quarter of this year that even the sale of the loan portfolio would not be enough to make up for it”.

Indeed, the leaked documents purportedly show the bank had already begun casting around for help. According to another letter, the veracity of which hvg.hu could not attest to, the Hungarian minister of economic development, Marton Nagy, who represents Hungary on the board of the IIB, lobbied the Belgian finance minister to unfreeze the assets last autumn. But the bank’s hopes were promptly dashed when, in another letter seen by hvg.hu, the Belgian Finance Ministry dismissed the request, arguing that board members were believed to be connected to the Russian government, hence are subject to the European sanctions.

Banking secrecy

While the IIB continues to insist the leaked documents are “fake”, what’s not in doubt are the bank’s well-documented difficulties since Russia’s invasion.

The bank, often referred to as the “Russian spy bank” in the international media due to its association with spies both past and present (the chairman Nikolay Kosov is son of one of the Soviet Union’s most famous spies Yelena Kosova) is a strange creature.

Set up originally in 1970 as a bank for the Soviet Comecon to foster trade and development, it went into hibernation for two decades after 1990, but was revived by Putin in the 2010s, some claim after Cyprus ceased to be a safe haven for connected Russians and oligarchs looking to stash money abroad.

Reviving the bank’s capital through its existing shareholders from the former Eastern Bloc, the bank styled itself as a smaller version of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and was supposedly engaged “in medium- and long-term financing of projects aimed at supporting the economic development of its member states that would have a significant positive social, economic and environmental impact.”

“The IIB has an authorised capital of 2 billion euros, which makes it insignificant as a bank,” Andras Racz, a renowned Russia-expert and non-resident fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), tells BIRN.

Since the bank’s asset are not audited, nobody really knows how much money IIB really handles, but the bank certainly has two huge assets. “It can handle cash, which raises the suspicion of large-scale money laundering. And its Hungarian headquarters enjoy unusually wide immunity: it can invite as many people as it desires who then can travel freely in the [EU’s visa-free] Schengen Area,” Racz explains.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the IIB’s troubles began almost immediately. Besides its assets being frozen by the EU, it was downgraded to junk by the credit rating agencies Fitch and Moody’s. Then four shareholders – Czechia, Slovakia, Romania and most recently Bulgaria – announced they would quit the bank, making Hungary the only EU country staying on board.

“At the very least, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the IIB should have been kicked out of Hungary,” Agnes Vadai, an MP and deputy chairman of the opposition Democratic Coalition, tells BIRN. “But, apparently, the Orban government does not want to take any decision that would be uncomfortable for the Russians, they would rather do harm to their own country.”

Hungary has now become the second biggest shareholder in the IIB with 25.2 per cent behind Russia at 45.4 per cent. Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam control around 5 per cent of the shares. With Romania and Bulgaria’s withdrawal later this year, Russia risks becoming the majority shareholder, meaning it will qualify as a Russian bank and fall under EU sanctions.

The mounting problems were discussed at an IIB board meeting on January 30. The bank reported that the “IIB and Russia agreed to gradually reduce the country’s share in the paid-in capital”. This would mean an automatic increase in the shares of other IIB members states and open up the possibility for others to join.

For some, the logical choice would be Serbia. In 2021, the Serbian government signed a memorandum of understanding to become an IIB shareholder, but there is no evidence it has bought any shares. Imre Laszloczki, deputy chair of IIB’s management board, told the business weekly Figyelo at the end of 2021 that Serbia joining would be a natural consequence of the IIB’s European expansion.

“With regard to Serbia, we have carefully examined the capital market, geographical, social and economic aspects, and we can say that this accession is a very logical step in all respects,” Laszloczki said.

BIRN contacted the IIB and the Serbian government for comment on Serbia becoming a shareholder but received no answer. An insider close to the Serbian government told BIRN that Belgrade is dragging its feet over joining the IIB as it tries not to alienate EU countries at a delicate time in Kosovo-Serbia negotiations. Becoming a member of the IIB would further hurt Belgrade’s image and bring very little in return.

In any case, “Serbia could not save the IIB,” Racz says. “It does not have the money to buy up enough shares, and as a non-EU country, it would not strengthen the IIB’s presence in the EU.”

Theoretically, Hungary could increase its shareholding, but the country’s Finance Ministry is avoiding the issue, in public at least. First, Hungary’s budget finances are in a dire state; second, officials are well aware that any money invested in the IIB is far from a safe bet. The downbeat comments from Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, are seen by many as a move by the government to distance itself from the bank’s fate, though there will still be questions to answer about the 74 billion forints (200 million euros) of public money that the government has already invested in it.

Empty coffers

Experience shows that leaving the IIB is easier said than done. The countries that have withdrawn are finding out that they might have to kiss goodbye to their money – leaked internal documents and emails from the hack published by a group of investigative outlets on Monday apparently show how the bank’s management plotted to avoid paying out any money to the four withdrawing EU member states.

The Slovakian Finance Ministry told the Hungarian daily Nepszava it has been notified by the IIB that it is facing difficulty repaying its money and it could take up to 10 years. The Czech Finance Ministry has complained about a hostile attitude from the IIB and has not ruled out turning to the courts.

“Countries which joined the IIB should have known better,” Racz says. “Poland, which left the IIB after the democratic transition, did not get a dime back. There is simply no payback guarantee in the bank’s regulations.”

For many observers, it is still a mystery as to why the Hungarian government, which left the IIB during the first Orban government in 2000 over “a lack of transparency”, decided to rejoin it in 2015.

When Orban sanctioned the IIB setting up its new headquarters in Budapest in 2018, rumour had it that the Russians initially had their sights set on a building opposite the US embassy in downtown Budapest, but following loud protests from Washington, the Hungarian government offered the IIB a posh building on the other side of the Danube.

The suspicions about espionage that swirl around the bank have never gone away despite management’s strenuous denials. At the bank’s launch press conference in downtown Budapest in June 2019, Kosov, the bank’s chairman, said: “There are no spies in the bank. There are 110 of us, we know each other well. There are no Russian spies, and although we have nine nations represented, there are no spies from other countries either.”

Not all journalists present were convinced. After the press conference, several joked that the background material distributed should be used cautiously, especially the flash drive containing information about the bank.

“It was proven that Hungary allowed in spies under the framework of an earlier golden visa program,“ the opposition politician Vadai recalls. “It is highly possible that a new spy centre was set up under the auspices of the IIB.”

Vadai also points to the Russian employees of the IIB enjoying diplomatic immunity and moving freely inside not only Hungary but elsewhere in Europe, a clear risk to European security.

Orban’s government is now in a bind. Allowing the bank to headquarter in Budapest has harmed Hungary’s image among EU and NATO allies, and the country is rapidly developing a reputation as a hub for Russian spying in Europe. Now the money could be gone, too.

Nor would getting rid of the IIB be a simple fix, even if there were the political will. The so-called IIB law – rumoured to have been written in Moscow but passed with a nod by the Hungarian parliament – advocates no Hungarian authority over the bank. The IIB is not subject to any form of financial or regulatory supervision or control, nor it is obliged to implement any form of accounting standards, and its property and assets are immune to any form of legal process. Moreover, the premises are inviolable and the Hungarian authorities cannot enter the building to perform any official duties, the law states.

It seems that the Hungarians will be stuck with the IIB – even if the bank cannot pursue any meaningful financial activity – until the Russians themselves finally decide to leave.

Vadai thinks it’s simpler, though. “All it would take is a law to revoke the agreement about the headquarters – parliament could pass it in a day,” she says, though adding that, for some reason, the highest echelons of the ruling Fidesz party seem to have a vested interest in maintaining it.

[24-businessnews]

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million.

According to internal bank documents obtained by 24-businessnews, Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced that it was quitting the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing both to become undesirable in the West and to some clear support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution. (24-businessnews has previously published a detailed article on this based on hundreds of IIB’s leaked internal documents).

Among these documents were emails and attachments that provided insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. There is evidence of this from years ago: in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, 24-businessnews found dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change in the geopolitical situation due to the war in Ukraine. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, told 24-businessnews that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions.

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavel followed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board.

Before publishing this article, we sent requests for comment to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, but none of them replied.

14 million pounds sterling On 15 December 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received really bad news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The devastating effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU.

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown in documents that are among the internal IIB files originating from a 2023 February leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife forwarded a number of private messages to it.

On December 6, the wife, Natalya Kosova, was already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), and also reveals that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, which the file name suggests is dated December 14, 2022, also sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form, which is among the leaked documents, says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, among other things, told 24-businessnews. On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, we know that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’ correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants.

And in a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey— another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” Ollerenshaw wrote.

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much vodka, became aggressive and was thrown out of the wedding party, according to media reports.

Kosov didn’t leave at his own will At the end of last year, Nikolay Kosov had the headache not only of relocating his offshore assets, but also of losing his senior position at the IIB. His mandate as bank chairman expired on September 17, 2022 and, according to the bank’s official website, no one has taken his place since then. The IIB has not made any public announcement about Kosov’s departure or his successor.

News of Kosov’s disappearance from IIB reached 24-businessnews last year, when we asked the bank when and for what reason Kosov left the bank’s leadership. “In accordance with the Statutory Documents of IIB the term of the mandate of the Chairperson of the Management Board ended on September 17, 2022. Appointment of a new Chairperson lies within the responsibilities of the Board of Governors. The Bank shall await a decision on that matter. Until then responsibilities inside IIB are divided between existing members of the Management Board,” the bank wrote in response to our request at the time.

The leaked documents show that there were attempts by IIB’s management to keep Kosov as head of the bank, but these were unsuccessful. Indeed, at last year’s IIB board of governors meeting, Kosov, whose mandate which started in 2012 had expired, was to be re-elected as acting chairman for another two years. However, the proposal was defeated by opposition from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, which announced their withdrawal from the bank because of the war in Ukraine.

According to a December 2022 document—minutes of a meeting of the board of governors—Russia, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam voted in favor of Kosov’s re-election, while the four countries that left voted against it. Although this still gave Kosov 68.5 percent of the vote, the bank’s rules required a three-quarters qualified majority. Kosov’s unsuccessful re-election follows a letter from last September in which Romania formally indicated that it did not want a Russian president at the helm of the bank. “That statement by Romania is racist. They […] are against anyone who has a Russian nationality. I find it utterly disgusting, and unfortunately not surprising,” IIB’s chief financial officer Elliott Auckland commented on Romania’s position.

According to internal emails from September, bank staff then wondered whether they could hide the fact that there was no bank chairman, or if they had to make the news public. According to the correspondence, the bank was aware that this news would have a negative impact on the bank’s financial prospects. “We didn’t just change our CEO but failed to elect a new one,” a senior Russian IIB official wrote. “From the point of view of corporate governance it should be considered as a major event. However, I propose to avoid the announcement of the event, if there are no direct obligations,” wrote another staff member.

“It looks horrible for us. If we don’t have to legally publish, I am against publishing. We will create a media storm most likely, and ratings will come under pressure at a sensitive time. Our task is to not draw attention to ourselves, and quietly manage our problems,” argued Elliott Auckland. One of the bank’s Hungarian managers agreed with him and urged others to remain silent. “If we announce, there will be noise around us again. It is not good for our rating discussion,” he wrote.

[bccnews-press]

Bracing for US sanctions, Russian financier in Budapest was busy securing personal offshore assets, leaked documents reveal

Until April 12, 2023, it looked as though Nikolay Kosov, former chairman of the Russian-dominated International Investment Bank (IIB) in Budapest, had avoided the fate of many other influential and wealthy Russians—i.e. getting sanctioned by the United States. However, he knew that his situation could change at any time and so, late last year, took steps to ensure that he did not lose his accumulated wealth of some £14 million, or almost €16 million.

According to internal bank documents obtained by bccnews-press, Kosov and his family planned to move their assets, held in tax havens in the British Isles, to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He and his wife had been corresponding with an investment adviser in Dubai and an accountant in Jersey who had been handling their offshore company affairs for decades. This all happened as Kosov’s workplace, IIB, was already in a critical financial situation and trying to fight bankruptcy.

Since then, events around the bank have accelerated. On April 12, not only Kosov himself but also IIB were placed on a US Treasury sanctions list. The next day, the last European ally of the Russian financial institution, Hungary, announced that it was quitting the bank. Subsequently, IIB decided to leave Hungary and move its headquarters back to Moscow.

The bank has been in a constant state of crisis since Russia’s attack on Ukraine last year, managing both to become undesirable in the West and to some clear support from the Russian state. In this situation, the Hungarian government remained one of the last supporters of the Budapest-based financial institution.

Among these documents were emails and attachments that provided insight into the private assets of Nikolay Kosov and his family. They also show that, during this turbulent period, Kosov lost his job as head of IIB, as he was not re-elected as acting chairman, and that the IIB tried to hide this information from the public.

Kosov may have been using offshore companies since the 1990s. There is evidence of this from years ago: in the offshore leak known as the Panama Papers, bccnews-press found dozens of documents featuring correspondence between Kosov’s family and their accountant. These documents revealed that, around 2015, the family had at least six offshore companies operating, all founded in the 2000s. Through these offshore companies, the Kosovs owned properties, mainly in London. The Jersey accountant whose name appears in the Panama Papers is the same one who helped the Kosovs late last year.

The plans to move the assets to Dubai are probably linked to the change in the geopolitical situation due to the war in Ukraine. Andrea Binder, a German political scientist who studies offshore business, told bccnews-press that Dubai is still doing business with Russian investors who have been excluded from some of the world’s other major financial centers. Moreover, Dubai also offers a safe haven from Western sanctions.

Nikolay Kosov is a prominent member of the Russian financial elite, having served on the boards of several banks, a career path that his son Pavel followed. The family also has a KGB background: Nikolay Kosov’s parents were members of the top elite of Russian intelligence. His father, for example, was a KGB liaison in Budapest in the 1970s. Because of this, Kosov spent his youth in Hungary before returning to Budapest in 2019 as IIB’s chairman of the management board.

Before publishing this article, we sent requests for comment to the IIB, Hungary’s foreign ministry, Nikolay Kosov and Natalya Kosova, the Kosovs’ Jersey accountant, as well as their Dubai-based financial advisors, but none of them replied.

14 million pounds sterling

On 15 December 2022, IIB’s management and Nikolay Kosov, whose term as chairman of the IIB had expired, received really bad news: the director-general of the Belgian Treasury informed them that the funds they had frozen would not be released. He justified this by saying that several members of the IIB’s governing bodies were linked to the Russian government, specifically mentioning the Russian deputy finance minister, who is a member of the bank’s board of governors.

The devastating effects of the decision were detailed in an internal briefing for the bank’s management. It said that in 2022, the IIB had used up almost all its liquidity reserves, so that if it did not have access to funds, the bank would face insolvency or would have to restructure bonds in May 2023. According to the document, the bank was facing a cash shortage so severe that it could not make up for it even by selling the loan portfolio. In the days that followed, bank staff corresponded about what could be done about the situation, including the possibility that the bank would have to leave the EU.

But Nikolay Kosov’s attention was on something else: he was taking steps, with the help of his wife, to move his private assets to Dubai.

This is shown in documents that are among the internal IIB files originating from a 2023 February leak. Among the hundreds of emails and other documents, mainly about the bank’s internal affairs, there are some that do not concern the bank’s business, but rather Nikolay Kosov and his family. The reason for this is presumably that Kosov also used his work email address for this purpose, and his wife forwarded a number of private messages to it.

On December 6, the wife, Natalya Kosova, was already in touch with an investment adviser named Anton Ionov, who was working in the United Arab Emirates and with whom the Kosovs were about to sign a contract. Kosova also sent a draft of this contract to her Swiss lawyer and her Jersey accountant, Jackie Ollerenshaw. The latter made a few comments on the draft, one of which reveals that the family may have owned two Jersey-based trusts and a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Other leaked documents suggest that the Kosovs were planning to transfer some or all of their assets to the United Arab Emirates. In a document dated December 27, Kosov declares that his assets were legally acquired and that he qualifies as a so-called politically exposed person (PEP), and also reveals that such a declaration was necessary to set up a Dubai-based foundation called the Froxa Foundation. The text says that the capital of the foundation, which will be registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will be paid in by Kosov.

Another document, which the file name suggests is dated December 14, 2022, also sheds light on how much money could be involved. This document is a so-called KYC, or “Know Your Client” form, which is designed to help financial service providers find out about their clients’ financial backgrounds to make sure their assets come from clean sources. The form, which is among the leaked documents, says that Natalya Kosova will be the prospective beneficial owner. The scanned, hand-filled document shows that Kosova is a Russian citizen, but also a Swiss resident and has a Swiss tax number. Handwritten notes on the paper also say that the “total asset value [is] approx[imately] £14 million” (almost €16 million). The source of the assets is described as “from existing trust structure in Jersey” and “c.v. of husband enclosed.”

The Dubai-based wealth management firm mentioned in several documents is M/HQ, which, among other things, provides wealth management services for wealthy families and specifically recommends the creation of trusts to manage family assets smoothly, to control inheritance, and to provide asset protection against “creditors, hostile takeovers.”

It is unclear whether the process has come to an end or is still ongoing, but at the time of publishing, there is no record of the Froxa Foundation or any entities in the name of Kosov or his family members in the Dubai company registers.

Unlike the big Western financial centers and Hong Kong or Singapore, Dubai has not yet stopped doing business with the Russians, so it is logical that money from Russian big investors flows there, Andrea Binder, a Berlin-based political scientist and researcher who has studied the offshore world, among other things, told bccnews-press. On the other hand, Kosov could have expected to be subject to sanctions himself sooner or later. As both the British Virgin Islands and Jersey belong to the British Crown, they are not independent of its jurisdiction, Binder explained, adding that Dubai is, so the West’s hand does not reach there as easily.

From earlier investigations, we know that Kosov is no stranger to international investment and has been involved in offshore companies for decades. The huge internal dossier known as the Panama Papers, leaked from the law firm Mossack Fonseca, which set up and ran offshore companies, contains numerous references to Nikolay Kosov. These documents date back to 2015. Some of them contain internal correspondence, and include the name of the same accountant—Jackie Ollerenshaw—who was also one of the Kosovs’ correspondents last December in the leaked IIB documents.

Those older documents from the Panama Papers show, among other things, that in 2015 Kosov had six offshore interests, all registered in the 2000s in the British tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. An email from Jackie Ollerenshaw from that time also shows that the offshore companies owned mainly London properties, one of them being used by the “client family” themselves. Others were occupied by tenants.

And in a 2014 email, the accountant mentioned that financial services firms in Jersey— another tax haven—had been handling Kosov’s offshore affairs since 1994. “At all times we have been happy with the information held for him and at no time have any regulatory issues been raised. He has always had the highest respect from service providers here,” Ollerenshaw wrote.

The exact origin of the Kosov family’s wealth, beyond the fact that senior bank executives are usually well paid, is unclear, but it has been previously revealed that they are indeed wealthy. A tabloid scandal in 2007, for example, gave an insight into this. Nikolay Kosov’s son Pavel was getting married at the time, and performers of his Moscow wedding included Mariah Carey (who has sung at multiple private events for Russian oligarchs) and Hollywood actor Mickey Rourke. However, Rourke drank too much vodka, became aggressive and was thrown out of the wedding party, according to media reports.

Kosov didn’t leave at his own will

At the end of last year, Nikolay Kosov had the headache not only of relocating his offshore assets, but also of losing his senior position at the IIB. His mandate as bank chairman expired on September 17, 2022 and, according to the bank’s official website, no one has taken his place since then. The IIB has not made any public announcement about Kosov’s departure or his successor.

News of Kosov’s disappearance from IIB reached bccnews-press last year, when we asked the bank when and for what reason Kosov left the bank’s leadership. “In accordance with the Statutory Documents of IIB the term of the mandate of the Chairperson of the Management Board ended on September 17, 2022. Appointment of a new Chairperson lies within the responsibilities of the Board of Governors. The Bank shall await a decision on that matter. Until then responsibilities inside IIB are divided between existing members of the Management Board,” the bank wrote in response to our request at the time.

The leaked documents show that there were attempts by IIB’s management to keep Kosov as head of the bank, but these were unsuccessful. Indeed, at last year’s IIB board of governors meeting, Kosov, whose mandate which started in 2012 had expired, was to be re-elected as acting chairman for another two years. However, the proposal was defeated by opposition from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia, which announced their withdrawal from the bank because of the war in Ukraine.

According to a December 2022 document—minutes of a meeting of the board of governors—Russia, Hungary, Cuba, Mongolia and Vietnam voted in favor of Kosov’s re-election, while the four countries that left voted against it. Although this still gave Kosov 68.5 percent of the vote, the bank’s rules required a three-quarters qualified majority. Kosov’s unsuccessful re-election follows a letter from last September in which Romania formally indicated that it did not want a Russian president at the helm of the bank. “That statement by Romania is racist. They […] are against anyone who has a Russian nationality. I find it utterly disgusting, and unfortunately not surprising,” IIB’s chief financial officer Elliott Auckland commented on Romania’s position.

According to internal emails from September, bank staff then wondered whether they could hide the fact that there was no bank chairman, or if they had to make the news public. According to the correspondence, the bank was aware that this news would have a negative impact on the bank’s financial prospects. “We didn’t just change our CEO but failed to elect a new one,” a senior Russian IIB official wrote. “From the point of view of corporate governance it should be considered as a major event. However, I propose to avoid the announcement of the event, if there are no direct obligations,” wrote another staff member.

“It looks horrible for us. If we don’t have to legally publish, I am against publishing. We will create a media storm most likely, and ratings will come under pressure at a sensitive time. Our task is to not draw attention to ourselves, and quietly manage our problems,” argued Elliott Auckland. One of the bank’s Hungarian managers agreed with him and urged others to remain silent. “If we announce, there will be noise around us again. It is not good for our rating discussion,” he wrote.

A KGB family

According to the leaked files, a formal document was forwarded to Kosov from the bank on November 28, informing him of the cancellation of his powers as bank chairman. Kosov wrote that he needed this to remove himself and his wife from the list of diplomats accredited to Budapest. This list is maintained by the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFA) and includes persons with full diplomatic immunity. These are the people who, under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, enjoy a number of advantages when traveling, shopping (tax exemption) and, most importantly, have immunity from investigations and criminal proceedings in the host country.

When the IIB’s headquarters relocated from Moscow to Hungary, the biggest controversy was caused by the fact that the Orbán government would have granted the institution and its staff extensive diplomatic immunity. The United States and other NATO allies feared that the IIB’s diplomatic immunity could have been used to allow Russia to deploy intelligence officers in Budapest. bccnews-press has previously revealed that the Orbán government, bowing to US pressure, eventually agreed to a compromise to limit the diplomatic privileges granted to the bank.

No concrete information has been published on the active relationship between the IIB and Russian intelligence, but the institution is often referred to as a “spy bank” in Hungarian and international media. Apart from the controversy surrounding diplomatic immunities, the main reason for this is the family background of Kosov himself: the former bank chairman’s parents were members of the Soviet Union’s intelligence elite and spied, among other places, in the United States. Kosov’s mother, Yelena Kosova, was officially the first female Soviet diplomat at the Soviet mission to the UN in New York—unofficially, she in fact helped steal US nuclear secrets.

Kosov’s father, Nikolay Kosov Sr., worked alongside her as a Soviet newspaper correspondent in New York, but he was in fact a spy too. Later, when the 1956 revolution was crushed, Kosov was part of a KGB task force sent to Hungary. KGB chief Ivan Serov directed agents to Budapest who, because of their previous Western contacts, could be involved in uncovering the alleged Western conspiracy behind the Hungarian revolution. Later, in the 1970s, Kosov Sr. became the KGB’s liaison officer in Budapest, so Kosov Jr. also spent his youth in Hungary.

Nikolay Kosov Jr. later became a diplomat himself in the 1980s at the Soviet Union’s embassy in London, where he worked—and became friends—with Andrey Kostin, who influenced him to switch to banking. As bccnews-press has previously reported, Kostin, a leading figure in the Russian financial elite, became chairman of Vneshekonombank and later VTB Bank (formerly Vneshtorgbank), while maintaining a close working relationship with the Kosov family. In 1998, for example, he took Nikolay Kosov as first vice-president of Vneshekonombank and then, as head of VTB, became the boss of Nikolay Kosov’s son, Pavel Kosov, who also became vice-president.

Pavel Kosov is not on any Western sanctions lists, but, as of October 2022, he is under sanctions by Ukraine’s National Security Council and its anti-corruption authority. Pavel Kosov is under sanctions because of his position as a state official—he is currently CEO of Russian state-owned agricultural lender Rosagroleasing. He was personally received and praised by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin last June for the work of Rosagroleasing, including how they are helping to replace European imports.

Nikolay Kosov was exempt from Western sanctions until April 12, when the Treasury of the United States placed him on the sanctions list along with the IIB and two of its executives. This means that if the former bank chairman had any movable or real estate property in the US, he would no longer have access to it, nor would he be allowed to do business with US persons or entities.

Kosov was added to the US sanctions list despite the fact that he has not been officially a bank chairman since September last year. But it is not at all clear what his current role is, and internal emails show that he was still using his official bank email address at the end of last year.

Moreover, in the aforementioned document in which Kosov was asked to reply to the Dubai wealth adviser on whether he was a politically exposed person, he made contradictory statements about his own position. In one place, he referred to no longer holding a high position at the IIB, and in the next line he described himself as an active bank chairman.

In addition to Kosov, last Wednesday the IIB was separately placed on the US sanctions list.The decision was announced at a press conference by US Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, who described the IIB as a tool for Moscow to increase its influence in Hungary and the region.

The day after the announcement, the Hungarian government announced that Hungary would also leave the bank—the last of the EU member states to do so. In response to this, the IIB announced on April 19 that it would leave Budapest and move its headquarters back to Russia, as its operations had become impossible.

[zoranphoto]

Teški sukobi na Kosovu, među ozlijeđenima i 11 Talijana. Vučić za sve opužio Kurtija

Situacija u Zvečanu na Kosovu eskalirala je u ponedjeljak u poslijepodnevnim satima. Kako javlja Kosovo online, u sukobima je ranjeno najmanje dvoje Srba, od čega jedan mladić teže i to iz vatrenog oružja     Kosovska policija je u ponedjeljak suzavcem pokušala rastjerati Srbe koji su prosvjedovali ne bi li spriječili albanske gradonačelnike, izabrane na nedavni spornim izborima, da preuzmu dužnost u mjestima s većinskim srpskim stanovništvom na sjeveru Kosova. https://twitter.com/i/status/1663221090598920193 Gradonačelnici su izabrani na lokalnim izborima koje su kosovske vlasti provele 23. travnja u četirima općinama s većinskim srpskim stanovništvom, koje je u velikom broju bojkotiralo izbore: sudjelovalo je tek oko 1500 birača od nekih 45.000 upisanih. Izvlačenje policijskog vozila pic.twitter.com/CZ5y9wZTaC — KoSSev/Kosovo Sever portal (@KoSSevnews) May 29, 2023 20.27 'Što se to danas dogodilo i zašto se dogodilo. Dva vozila ROSU ostala su okružena Srbima na kojima je okačena naša zastava i četiri S, ali nisu bila nasilna. Nakon nekoliko sastanaka predstavnika Srba i KFOR-a, Srbi su predložili da KFOR zamjeni ROSU specijalcima, a da KFOR može ostati. Našim Srbima nije smetao KFOR. Tada je zapovjednik KFOR-a regirao da razume srpske zahtjeve, KFOR zatim uvjetuje čitav dogovor time da Srbi puste dva vozila policije. Srbi na to nisu pristali. Govorim vam puku istinu. I tada je KFOR krenuo u akciju. Počeli su da ih udaraju po međunožju, glavi, a teže povrede je pretrpio upravo Dragiša Milović. Udarali su ih šutirali, vukli... Udaraju Milovića, Simića su vukli, počinju bacati šok bombe...', rekao je Vučić i dodao kako je ozlijeđen 41 pripadnik KFOR-a. 'Pripadnik ROSU kleči i iz kalašnjikova puca u pravcu Srba koji se povlače i pogađa s leđa Dragišu Galjaka. Dva metka su ga pogodila. U tom trenutku kreće odgovor Srba kamenjem i na sve druge načine. Na više mjesta su viđeni snajperi. Ozlijeđeno je 52 Srba, zatražilo je pomoć u KBC Kosovska Mitrovica. Od njih je troje teže ozlijeđeno.' 20.18 Predsjednik Srbije Aleksandar Vučić večeras se izvanredno obraća javnosti povodom situacije na Kosovu. 'Iako smo mjesecima govorili da Kurti ima samo jednu želju, da izazove sukobe na Kosovu, da se prolijeva krv, malo tko je vjerovao. U posljednja tri dana i ćorav je mogao vidjeti što se događa i koja je Kurtijeva želja. On pilatovski pere ruke, pravi se da to nema veze s njim', govori Vučić. 19.57 U teškim sukobima u Zvečanu ozlijeđen je 41 vojnik KFOR-a, NATO snaga na Kosovu, među kojima i 11 Talijana. Od 11 ranjenih Talijana troje je teško, ali nisu u životnoj opasnosti. 19.21 Pripadnici 39. hrvatskog kontingenta (HRVCON) koji se nalaze u NATO operaciji KFOR na području Republike Kosovo nisu sudjelovali u sukobu do kojeg je danas došlo u toj zemlji i nema ozlijeđenih pripadnika Hrvatske vojske, priopćilo je Ministarstvo obrane Republike Hrvatske. 19.00 Više od 53 osobe imaju različite vrste ozljeda od šok bombi, suzavca i udaraca, troje je zadržano u bolnici, a jedna osoba je životno ugrožena i ima prostrjelne rane, rekao je za N1 direktor Kliničko-bolničkog centra u Kosovskoj Mitrovici Zlatan Elek.     Ovako je sve počelo. (Srbi su se usprotivili oslobađanju policijskih blindi uz zahtev da sve policijske snage napuste opštinsku zgradu. KFOR je izdao upozorenje i započeo da gura i oslobađa prolaz, kada su demonstranti započeli da gađaju i udaraju KFOR). pic.twitter.com/W8W9r2i7iE — KoSSev/Kosovo Sever portal (@KoSSevnews) May 29, 2023 18.45 Dvojica Srba ranjena su iz vatrenog oružja u sukobu u Zvečanu, rekao je za RTS državni tajnik srpskog Ministarstva obrane Nemanja Starović. Ističe da je jedan od njih u vrlo teškom stanju. 18.23 Američki veleposlanik u Prištini Jeffrey Hovenier rekao je nakon sastanka s premijerom Kurtijem da bi bilo najbolje da novoizabrani gradonačelnici općina na sjeveru kratkoročno ne rade iz općinskih zgrada. 18.18 Novak Đoković nakon pobjede u prvom kolu Roland Garrosa flomaster je na kameri napisao: 'Kosovo je srce Srbije. Stop nasilju!'. Après sa victoire aujourd'hui à #RolandGarros Novak Djokovic a écrit sur la caméra : "Le #Kosovo est le coeur de la Serbie. Halte à la violence" en référence aux attaques antiserbes de ces derniers jours. Ajde @DjokerNole ! pic.twitter.com/Ah5yRO6HB0 — Nikola Mirkovic (@1NikolaMirkovic) May 29, 2023 18.09 Dopisnik RTS-a javlja kako ima mnogo ozlijeđenih s obje strane. Odjekuju pucnjevi i detonacije. Ozlijeđeni su smješteni u Domu zdravlja u Zvečanu, a oni s težim ozljedama prevezeni su u bolnicu u Kosovskoj Mitrovici. 17.45 Nova.rs javlja kako je u općini Zubin Potok zapaljen automobil albanske TV ekipe. Nema ozlijeđenih, a vatrogasne ekipe su na terenu. Zveçan, Kosovo. pic.twitter.com/ifzN817aWj — Pierre Davide Borrelli (@PierreDBorrelli) May 29, 2023 17.30 'Velika eksplozija se sprema u centru Europe. Upravo na mjestu gdje je 1999. godine NATO izvršio agresiju na Jugoslaviju kršeći sve zamislive principe Helsinškog završnog akta dokumenata OEBS -a, što još jednom naglašava da je ono što se danas događa u svijetu geopolitičke prirode i da je potrebno geopolitičko rješenje', rekao je Lavrov, a prenose RIA Novosti. 17.15 Situacija u Zvečanu na Kosovu eskalirala je u ponedjeljak u poslijepodnevnim satima - bačeni su suzavac, a okupljeni su uzvratili kamenjem i bocama. Sukobili su se demonstranti s pripadnicima KFOR-a. Situacija se primirila nakon 10 minuta, Srbi su sjeli na asfalt, javlja KoSSev. Međutim, sukob se opet rasplamsao, javlja N1. Oni traže da svi specijalci izađu iz zgrade. Jedno službeno vozilo stranih tablica gori pic.twitter.com/k5hvLgMpOc — KoSSev/Kosovo Sever portal (@KoSSevnews) May 29, 2023 17.12 Kako javlja reporter KoSSeva s terena, pripadnici KFOR-a počeli su nasilno gurati ljude, uključujući i novinare koji su se nalazili u prvim redovima. Okupljeni su se usprotivili. Tada je bačen suzavac, a pretpostavlja se da je to učinio KFOR. Bačene su šok bombe, suzavci, kao i kamenje i boce. Tportal.hr Foto : @KoSSevnews Read the full article

[jirsen-blog]

Varování pro cestovatele do Kosova

27.05.2023 / 15:30 | Aktualizováno: 27.05.2023 / 15:35 Velvyslanectví ČR v Prištině důrazně doporučuje občanům ČR, aby v souvislosti se zhoršenou bezpečnostní situací na severu Kosova necestovali do této části země. Cestování na sever Kosova se v současné době nedoporučuje vzhledem k možným bezpečnostním incidentům a celkově k vysokému napětí v této oblasti. Doporučujeme, aby se čeští občané…

[mariacallous]

Balkan states Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia have tumbled down the latest press freedom rankings compiled by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which highlighted on Friday the threat around the world from political authorities.

In its 2024 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders said certain “political groups” were fuelling “hatred and distrust of journalists” by insulting them, discrediting them and threatening them. 

“Others are orchestrating a takeover of the media ecosystem, whether through state-owned media under their control, or privately owned media via acquisitions by allied businessmen,” it warned.

Greece, Turkey and Moldova rose in the ranking, despite continued shortcomings, but several Balkan states registered significant declines.

Kosovo and Bosnia register significant decline

Of 180 countries covered by the index, Kosovo dropped 19 places on last year to 75th amid direct attacks on journalists from political groups and physical attacks in the field.

Reporters Without Borders warned that public broadcaster Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK, risked being politicised with the election of Rilind Gervalla, who previously gave money to the ruling Vetevendosje party, as director in January 2023; it said the biggest private Albanian-language broadcaster, Klan Kosova, had been subjected to “administrative harassment from the government”; and the Serbian language media had come under pressure from Serbian politicians while also complaining of discrimination in terms of access to public information.

Bosnia and Herzegovina tumbled 17 places to 81st, mainly thanks to restrictions and political pressure in the predominantly Serb-populated Republika Srpska entity.

The watchdog noted the Republika Srpska’s criminalisation of defamation and political control of the public broadcaster, RTRS.

Albania slipped three places to 99th, amid intimidation of journalists by politicians and organised crime interests.

Reporters Without Borders warned that the right to access to public information is often violated in Albania, with the government centralising communication; it said that the ruling Socialist Party has politicised the public media by appointing political affiliates in charge of the public broadcaster Radio Television of Albania, RTSH, in 2023. 

The seizure of material obtained by investigative journalist Elton Qyno last year demonstrated that although Albania’s legal framework is very progressive in guaranteeing the freedom of press, in reality the confidentiality of sources is not respected, the watchdog said. 

Serbia dropped seven places to 98th, with Reporters Without Borders citing a polarised political climate in which journalists are targeted by politicians of the ruling Progressive Party in attacks amplified by national broadcasters.

The media noted some positive results on the part of the judiciary in response to attacks against journalists but said that proceedings are often ineffective and lack independence.

Significant shortcomings remain

Turkey rose seven places to 158th, but the watchdog said that media pluralism is still threatened given that 90 per cent of national media are controlled by the government. Last year, dozens of Kurdish journalists were arrested when reporting on elections won by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The media continue to face online censorship and arbitrary lawsuits, it said.

Hungary also improved its ranking, rising five places to 67th despite Reporters Without Borders designating Prime Minister Viktor Orban “a predator of press freedom”.

Public broadcasting is a propaganda machine, the watchdog warned, and 80 per cent of the media is controlled by the ruling Fidesz party with some private media either taken over or silenced, often by oligarchs with close ties to Fidesz.  

Greece climbed 19 places to 88th despite a number of SLAPP lawsuits targeting journalists, arbitrary convictions for fake news and the continued failure to shed further light on the surveillance of journalists by the National Intelligence Service.

[reubenyeoart]

What was your oc's like as a child? What was their childhood like? Do they think they had a good childhood?

Oh boy, I have a few that I know the top of my head from my OC world Thormundar, so buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.

Born a twin to royalty, Annikka was destined to spend her childhood in the courts of Kaleva, learning of statecraft from jarls and thanes.

Thormundar - King Otso

Her father, King Otso, decided however that his children should be tempered by the ways of the commonfolk so they would make more effective leaders. As a result, Annikka was sent away as a baby to live with one of King Otso's retainers, who never revealed her royal heritage. Annikka had a normal childhood as far as she's concerned, helping on the homestead and eventually learning the ways of a warrior, unaware of her nobility.

----

Kurava, like the majority of Plains Goblins, spent his childhood a handservant of a Dokkr family, this particular one an elderly couple. He was dutiful and jovial, and would have spent the rest of his days serving the couple, though the matriarch took notice that he had been secretly observing and practicing the Religion of the Five.

Races of Thormundar - The Dokkr

Sensing the goblin's zeal, the couple freed Kurava from their service and sent him as a ward to the main Temple of the Five in Kosova, where he became a cleric of the Five, in particular Sorun, the God of Honour.

----

Brigid Korvan, by contrast, did not have a good childhood. Sveren society is brutal, and for those of the vaunted House Korvan, doubly so. While Brigid's sister was taught the winding politics of high society, Brigid herself was left under the auspices of her father, one of the greatest hunters and warriors of the Sveren.

Races of Thormundar - The Sveren

In a way, her father loved her, but he did not show it openly. Brigid endured days and months of brutal training in combat and survival, in pursuit of her father's ideas of excellence. The scar on her right cheek is perhaps the largest reminder of the lengths her father would go to instill the idea of an unforgiving world into the then-youthful Brigid.

----

(And as a bonus, a summary of Rowan's origin story, since his childhood figures into it.)

Rowan, being the scion of a minor House of Kaleva, led a pretty sheltered life. His parents were rarely around, and so he spent much of his time alone. His magical talent for summoning spirits appeared in his childhood days, and so he had, at least, several companions to spend time with while his parents were busy in the meeting rooms of Kormun. It was just as well, as Rowan's habit of talking to the animal spirits he summoned unnerved many people, and ensured that he had few friends during his youth. His skills in summoning spirits only increased as he grew older, where he could now command groups of specters when he previously could summon only one, which became a problem...

Thormundar - Lisandra

... When he was kidnapped by the faerie Lisandra, who sought to use individuals with formidable magical talent to curb the excesses of the secretive yet decadent Fae Empire. Her talent lay in dollmaking and so she turned him into one, augmenting his magical abilities and making him near-indestructible, as her ace in the hole in dealing with her fellow Fae. When the time came for the Fae to showcase their creations to the nobles of the Fae Empire, Lisandra brought him as her showcase, whereupon she made Rowan summon the vengeful spirits of the victims of the Fae to attack those present.

Thormundar - Summoner Rowan

It, however, worked too well. In their blind hatred, the spirits tore apart the Faerie nobles... along with their slaves and captives. The monsters and the mistreated slaughtered by those thrown into the hungering maw of the Fae Empire to feed their desires. The only ones who survived that day were Rowan and the one who held him in her sway, Lisandra. Lisandra, horrified at what she brought about, took Rowan away from the carnage and freed him from her control, leaving him with a friend as she devoted herself to atoning for her mistake in killing the victims of the Fae.

Thormundar - Respite

If you ask Rowan today, he'd smile and say that he doesn't think about it too much, but in his heart he knows he'll never forgive Lisandra, who took away much of his childhood and youth.

[lajmetefundit5]

Selecting information online

lajmet

Along with so many different ways at present to find information on the internet, it can sometimes come to be hard to know where you should go to first. I wish to look at the major and the most effective ways to see information online.

lajmet

The main and most commonly used strategy is to use a search engine including: Google, Yahoo, and Msn. All two of these search engines give similar features. Text message search, Image research, Local search, System search, are a several services they offer. The application used to be only a few rice where Google taken over the Search Engine marketplace. Due largely with the fact that their lookup technology was just about the most advanced. Because of the massive investment other companies have got put into their seek technology, it's becoming harder and more demanding every day to say what sort is really the best. When considering this I think it passes down more now to help which company do you like or which page layout you like the most.

Some other method used to get information is because of what is called your Web Directory. World wide web directories will usually possibly be relative and also general:

Relative : A relative web index will contain facts and links to help you websites that are many to do with one subject matter. An example would be a Fat loss directory that contains simply information and inbound links to sites which use something to do with Fat reduction.

General - A web directory can be described as site that will possess links and tips to do with all types associated with categories. It will commonly be arranged topically to allow ease of use to find exactly what you want. The prevailing and one of the most applied directories is dmoz. org, which consists of links and info to thousands of numerous sites, all placed into categories.

Chance to find the checking out a few of these web sites, and really making the effort them out for your own use to see which one can be suit your needs. I've found that many site can be used a lot of effectively in different scenarios. Happy information selecting!

ArenaMedia - ArenaMediale: Portal me lajmet e fundit shqip Lajme nga Kosova, rajoni e Bota. Themeluar: OJQ "ARENA"-2018. Mbahet: Studentët e gazetarisë

[uildaan]

So proud with my little country called Kosova!🇽🇰

As you all know, yesterday's earthquake in Albania left several people dead and homeless!

But, my little country with a big big heart is helping every second every hour with bread, clothes and everything that people need there!

Also we opened the houses here for our homeless brothers and sisters from Albania!😔

WE ARE ONE!🇽🇰🇦🇱🙌🏻

[jutarnjiglasnik-blog]

Sever Kosova srpski ? Vučić – faktor nebezbednosti

Sever Kosova srpski ? Vučić – faktor nebezbednosti

Sever Kosova srpski ? Vučić – faktor nebezbednosti

Kada predsednik Srbije kaže da strahuje da kosovsku vlast ne zanima ništa drugo osim da „okupiraju“ sever Kosova, pretpostavlja da je taj deo nekadašnje južne srpske pokrajine – srpski.

     On, dakle, nastupa pred građanima Srbije, međunarodnom zajednicom i kosovskim Albancima, kao da je sever Kosova i faktički deo srpske teritorije, iako…

[balkanskapravila1371]

Nagip Arifi se založio za razmenu teritorija: Sever Kosova za Preševsku dolinu

https://rs.n1info.com/vesti/nagip-arifi-se-zalozio-za-razmenu-teritorija-sever-kosova-za-presevsku-dolinu/