The Guardian on The ‘The Panama Papers.’

You could probably guess this part:

‘A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.’

A pretty big deal.

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On that note, via Michael Moynihan: ‘Kim Philby, British Double-Agent, Reveals All In Secret Video:’

Talk a walk on the spy-side.  More on Philby, here, in a review.

Below, Anthony Cave Brown discusses his book on Philby: ‘Treason In The Blood‘

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What about British spies who were also writers?

Graham Greene was a man of letters and generally of the Left: Worldly, deeply Catholic, a seducer, in whose works the world’s grime seems to coat everything.

If you liked The Third Man, here’s a documentary about his life and times:

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You can’t enjoy the highs if you haven’t endured the lows, am I right?

***1980′s tourist Putin meeting Ronald Reagan as a KGB member in Red Square.

***Putin and Bush’s love affair in a GAZ M-21 Volga caught on tape.  Putin sent Medvedev out to keep the flame alive with Obama on missile defense.

Are we headed toward 19th century geo-politics?:  Obama’s Decision On Missile Defense And A Quote From Robert Kagan’s: ‘The Return Of History And The End Of Dreams’

More Russian links…as previously posted:

On the Nemtsov killing: Don’t speak out.

Julia Ioffe at her site: ‘The Bizarre End To Vladimir Putin’s Bizarre Marriage:‘

‘An odd moment in the announcement came when Putin mentioned his confirmed children, two adult daughters whom we’ve never really seen, though there were reports in 2010 that one of them was marrying the son of a South Korean admiral.’

A reader passed along a video of Bill Browder, who made a billion, lost much of it, and got a look at Russian politics, money, and power up close.  The way he describes it:  Corruption all the way to the top.

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What goes around, comes around-An oldie but a goodie-George Kennan: ‘The Sources Of Soviet Conduct‘

60 Minutes had an interview with ‘Jack Barsky,‘ an East-German Soviet spy who ended up living in America.  To hell with it!

From The National Interest: ‘Inside The Mind Of George F. Kennan’,,,Eric Postner back in 2008: The Bear Is Back