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ลำดับตอนที่ #11 : Russia demands ´Putin corruption´ proof
The Kremlin has called on the US Treasury to come up with
proof after it told a BBC investigation it considered President Vladimir Putin
to be corrupt.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told
reporters the allegation
was an "official accusation"
and a "total fabrication".
Adam Szubin, who oversees US
Treasury sanctions,
told BBC Panorama that the US government had known Mr Putin was corrupt for
"many, many years".
It is thought to be the first time
the US has made such a direct accusation.
Washington has already imposed sanctions on Mr
Putin's aides, but has stopped short of levelling corruption allegations at the
president himself.
US restrictions were placed on a number
of Kremlin insiders in 2014, after President Putin ordered the annexation of Crimea from
Ukraine and conflict broke out in eastern Ukraine. The EU imposed similar measures against Russian
companies and individuals, focusing on sectors of the Russian economy that were
close to the elite.
The US government stated at the
time that President Putin had secret investments in the energy sector.
Mr Peskov told reporters in Moscow that the Panorama allegations
would have looked like "another classic case of irresponsible journalism,
if not for an official comment from a representative of the US finance
ministry".
As such it was an official accusation. "It
clearly shows who is directing this," said Mr Peskov, who added that such
an allegation required proof, to show that the statements were not unfounded slander.
In the programme, Mr Szubin spoke of how "we've
seen [Mr Putin] enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalising those who
he doesn't view as friends using state assets", whether it concerned Russia's
energy wealth or state contracts. "To me, that is a picture of
corruption," he said.
US government officials have been reluctant to be
interviewed about President Putin's wealth, and Mr Szubin would not comment on
a secret CIA report from 2007 that estimated it at around $40bn (£28bn).
But he said the Russian president
had been amassing
secret wealth. "He supposedly draws a state salary of something like
$110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man's wealth, and he
has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual
wealth."
President Putin declined to be
interviewed for Panorama but the Kremlin denies such allegations.
In 2008, President Putin
personally addressed claims that he was the richest man in Europe, saying:
"It's simply rubbish. They just picked all of it out of someone's nose and
smeared it across
their little papers."
The Panorama programme came days
after a UK public inquiry said Mr Putin had "probably" approved the
murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.
Mr Peskov pointed out that the
programme had coincided
with "quasi-court proceedings" and said that the Kremlin was used to
such "false-reporting", whether it was the result of incompetence or
an orchestrated campaign.
Litvinenko, a former Russian Federal
Security Service (FSB) agent and fierce critic of Mr Putin, was poisoned in
London with radioactive polonium in 2006.
Sir Robert Owen's report found
that Mr Putin was likely to have signed off the attack in part due to personal
"antagonism" between the president and Litvinenko. The Russian
foreign ministry rejected the report as neither transparent nor unbiased.
VOCABULARY
Treasury (n.) the government department responsible for
financial matterssuch as spending and taxes
Allegation (n.) a statement, made without giving proof, that someone has done something wrong or illegal:
Accusation (n.)
a statement saying
that someone has done something morally wrong, illegal, or unkind, or the fact of accusingsomeone:
fabrication
fabricate (v.) to invent or produce something false in order to deceivesomeone:
sanctions (n.)
an official order,
such as the stopping of trade,
that is taken against a country in order to
make it obeyinternational law
a strong action taken
in order to make people obey a
lawor
rule,
or a punishment given when they do not obey
approval or permission, especially formal or
legal:
impose (v.)
to officially force a rule,
tax,
punishment, etc. to be obeyed or received
to force someone to accept something, especially a beliefor
way of living:
annexation
annex (v.) to take possession of
an area of land or a country, usually by force or without permission:
measures (v.)
to discover the exact size or amount of something:
elite. (n.)
the richest, most powerful, best-educated, or best-trained group in a society:
unfounded (adj.) If a claim or piece of news is unfounded, it is not based on fact:
slander. (n.)
a false spoken statement about
someone that damages theirreputation, or the making of such a statement:
marginalise (v.)
to treat someone
or something as if they are not important:
reluctant (adj.)
not willing to do something and therefore slow to do it:
amass (v.) to get a large amount of something, especially money or information, by collecting it
over a long period:
smear (v.)
to publicly accuse someone of something unpleasant, unreasonable, or unlikely to be true in order to harm theirreputation:
coincided (v.)
to happen at or near the
same time:
to be the same or similar:
transparent (adj.)
If a substance or
object is transparent, you can see through it very clearly:
unbiased. (Adj.)
able to judge fairly because you
are not influenced by your
own opinions:
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