Putin denies links to leaked offshore documents:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied having any links to offshore accounts and described the Panama Papers document-leaks scandal as part of Western attempts to undermine Moscow.
Speaking on April 7 at a media forum in St. Petersburg, Putin described the documents leaked from a Panamanian law firm as part of a Western disinformation campaign.
"Our opponents are above all concerned by the unity and consolidation of the Russian nation, our multinational Russian people. They are attempting to rock us from within, to make us more obedient," he said, in his first comments over the scandal.
Some 11.5 million documents were leaked from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, which specializes in making offshore arrangements for the world's rich and famous.
Putin was not specifically named in any of the leaked documents, but some of his friends and associates were.
Putin rejected that his longtime friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, who figured in the Panama Papers as the owner of $2 billion in offshore assets, was involved in any wrongdoing. (Reuters, AP)
Here's another video from our multimedia department:
Panama Papers Protests: Iceland vs. Russia
How did Icelanders and Russians react to their respective officials being implicated in the Panama Papers scandal?
RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service has been canvassing opinion on the Panama papers on the streets of Baku:
Panama Papers: Azeri President's Dealings Considered Business As Usual
The massive data leak from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca indicated that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's wife and daughters have been secret shareholders in several offshore companies with a multimillion-dollar property portfolio. But while the "Panama Papers" reports have caused uproar in some countries this week, there was barely a ripple on the streets of Baku.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been commenting on the questions raised about him in respect to the Panama Papers. Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent Dmitry Smirnov is tweeting his comments in real time. You can follow Smirnov'stweets here (in Russian): @dimsmirnov175
Infographic shows number employees at British government's Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) working on "benefit fraud" compared to the number of tax investigators probing billions of pounds in alleged tax evasion:
Unrepentant Mossack Fonseca partner Jurgen Mossack: