the three question marks today:
Putin's billion network - is there a joint fund for the clan around Russia's president?
Raid on internet haters - will the hate propagandists who celebrated the death of two police officers end up in court?
Influencer Fynn Kliemann – why does he present himself as a victim of a conspiracy?
1.
Current research probably shows a billion-dollar network around Russia's President Putin - the asset movements also seem to affect his family environment
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Wladimir Putin
Photo: IMAGO/Sergei Bobylev / IMAGO/ITAR-TASS
As for the shameless greed for riches of many people, I've always found actor Danny Kaye's assessment amusing.
Kaye said: »Money alone doesn't make you happy.
It also includes stocks, gold and real estate.«
The powerful in the Kremlin and their friends seem to be following this clearly cynical slogan.
SPIEGEL, NDR and WDR were able to inspect research material from the journalists' network "Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project" (OCCRP) and the Russian internet magazine "Meduza", which appears to have unveiled a billion-dollar network surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Reporters have found evidence of a sprawling administrative network that appears to hold dozens of corporations, non-profit organizations and businesspeople together.
They are linked together in a kind of shadow network: a construct that does not appear among the shareholders or the parent companies of the companies concerned, but which nonetheless appears to be interfering with the operative business activity.
The research material supports suspicions that the possessions of oligarchs close to Putin are less separate private assets than a kind of joint fund of the Putin clan.
"In any case, the research shows that a striking number of personalities who are personally close to Vladimir Putin are among the beneficiaries and users of the hidden structure," says the text by the SPIEGEL colleagues.
Among them are "old acquaintances who have become rich from his time in the Saint Petersburg city administration, his daughter and her husband".
A former alleged lover of Putin also appears in it.
The focus of the research is, among other things, an Internet domain called LLCInvest.ru.
The letter sequence LLC stands for a company form with limited liability in US law, similar to the German GmbH.
However, one of the oddities of the LLCInvest construct is that there is no entry in the Russian company registers for a company of the same name - and there is also no suitable website on the Internet.
Apparently it is a clandestine network.
More than 80 companies and organizations that belong to rich bankers, oligarchs, but also children of Putin's friends are attributed to the association.
In many cases, directors and shareholders also use email addresses ending in @LLCInvest.ru.
A few of these e-mail addresses can be found easily on the Internet, but in many cases researchers have proven the existence of the e-mail accounts using specialized services.
"The only explanation I can find for this is that these companies are linked by a common management system," Ilya Schumanov from the Russian branch of the organization Transparency International told SPIEGEL.
The Kremlin denies the connections.
"The President of the Russian Federation is in no way connected or associated with the institutions and organizations mentioned," said Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
The fortunes within this network are evidently enormous.
OCCRP researchers estimate the value at around $4.5 billion.
A property called "Villa Sellgren" near the Finnish border, which according to reports from activists around Alexei Navalny is intended as a luxury holiday home for Russian President Putin, is said to belong to the assets.
But also wineries in Crimea and a holiday resort near Saint Petersburg, popular with winter sports enthusiasts, where Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova celebrated her wedding in 2013.
One of the SPIEGEL colleagues involved in the current story told me that it was also interesting to look at the case of Putin's older daughter Maria Vorontsova and her villa on Rublevka near Moscow: "She bought the villa with her husband.
Then they got divorced.
Then a company from the LLCInvest universe comes along and buys the thing from her husband." It almost seems as if there were a kind of fixer in the Putin clan: "You don't have to worry about anything - and everything stays in the ( LLCInvest) family.«
Read the whole story here: In the footsteps of the Kremlin GmbH
And here is more news and background information on the war in Ukraine:
»We hope that we won't become like Syria«
The cafés are open, the restaurants are fully booked, the squares are full of people: after months of fear, Kiev is trying to return to everyday life.
But that is more difficult than expected.
Walk through a traumatized metropolis.
A promise worth nothing
: candidacy for EU membership is of no use to Ukraine.
It would be more important to help: weapons and money.
Can you say no to Ukraine?
The EU has upgraded the country to candidate country.
But everyone suspects that it never becomes a member.
Is that cynical or without alternative?
Find all the latest developments on the war in Ukraine here: The News Update
2.
The police searched numerous apartments from hate posters today - presumably many of them made themselves liable to prosecution with statements after the death of two police officers
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Police Inspectorate Kusel
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
"Hate is the revenge of the coward," wrote the writer George Bernard Shaw. Unfortunately, the battlefield for this kind of revenge seems to have expanded greatly in the age of the Internet.
In 75 raids nationwide today, police searched the homes of suspects accused of hate speech online.
During the searches, 180 data carriers such as smartphones, notebooks and other digital devices were secured.
The reason for the raids is the work of the investigative group "Hate Speech" at the LKA Rhineland-Palatinate, which was set up after the killing of two police officers on January 31 in the West Palatinate district of Kusel.
The Rhineland-Palatinate Interior Minister Roger Lewentz, an SPD man, said today that in many of the statements on the Internet "the murder was celebrated and the victims made contemptible."
The trial against the alleged perpetrator Andreas S. begins tomorrow, Tuesday, in the Kaiserslautern district court.
He's charged with murder.
The 39-year-old is said to have killed a 24-year-old police officer and her 29-year-old colleague during a night traffic check on a country road near Kusel with several gunshots to cover up poaching.
I'm pretty stunned that in just the first three weeks after the crime, investigators collected more than 1,600 references to hatred and hate speech on the internet in connection with the crime.
And of course I think what Minister Lewentz said today is right and plausible: "When words are used like weapons, consistent government action is required."
Read more here: Police search homes of numerous hate posters
3.
The influencer Fynn Kliemann speaks in a video of a public conspiracy against him - that's supposed to save his company
Fynn Kliemann: Jan Böhmermann's editors want to tell him "like in the schoolyard back then" how to have fun, the YouTuber complains
Photo: Ingo Wagner/dpa
The influencer, musician and do-it-yourself king Fynn Kliemann, whom many people consider a downright likeable guy, has been the subject of talk in recent weeks because of his strange business practices.
He advertised "fairly produced" and supposedly European masks that actually came from Asia.
He apologized for this in – obviously prepared – video statements with a trembling voice.
My colleague Anton Rainer reported today that Kliemann's remorse seems to be over now.
On Sunday evening, Kliemann published an angry Instagram tirade lasting several minutes, in which he distributed public service media, “reporters gone mad” and parts of the “woken, left-wing scene”.
The editors of ZDF Magazin Royale, who want to tell him "how to have fun," make him particularly angry.
The team led by satirist Jan Böhmermann discovered at the beginning of May that large parts of the face masks that Kliemann and a business partner advertised as "fair and produced in Europe" from the beginning of May 2020 actually came from Bangladesh and Vietnam.
Around 100,000 inadequate masks were also sent to refugee homes.
Kliemann denies having made any money from the dubious deals.
The public prosecutor's office in Stade has been investigating suspected fraud for a few days.
Now the influencer is babbling about an intrigue in the public media.
This is supposed to save his company, a somewhat wild do-it-yourself playground called »Kliemannsland«, which he runs near Bremen.
"You made me big with public money, then I didn't make a mark, and now I'm supposed to be destroyed with exactly the same money," says Kliemann in his new video.
The world cannot accept if you are "somehow different".
What does Kliemann mean when he says he "didn't feel anything" about the public media?
"I'd like to know that too," says my colleague Anton.
Until the mask scandal, Kliemann had planned an improv comedy game show called "Und Bitte!" with the NDR.
“Then it was canceled in a hurry – of course by the NDR”.
Incidentally, there is now a »Manifesto of Freedom« with 10 Commandments on Fynn Kliemann's website, which Anton drew my attention to.
My colleague thinks that Kliemann "already behaves like a cult leader."
Strangely enough, the first commandment in Finnmann's Decalogue reads: »The boundless freedom for creativity overrules every doubt, at all times.« Is that true in general, is it true in the case of Kliemann?
I would say: simply no.
Read the whole story here: Fynn Kliemann senses a conspiracy under public law
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What else is important today
Producer prices higher than at any time since 1949:
Manufacturer prices continue to rise at record speed.
In May, the Federal Statistical Office registered the strongest increase since the surveys began in 1949. Consumers could soon feel that.
Bundesbank recommends linking life expectancy and retirement age:
intergenerational equity, pensions, life expectancy – financial security in old age is increasingly becoming an impossible task.
The Bundesbank is now taking a stand and is once again touching on a taboo.
Le Pen resigns as party leader and becomes parliamentary group leader:
Marine Le Pen is one of the winners of the French parliamentary elections.
Your party has quadrupled the number of MPs.
Now the right-wing populist wants to concentrate on her role as group leader.
Diesel is more expensive than it was before the tax cut:
The tank discount brought consumers only brief relief.
After barely three weeks, the prices are higher than before.
Beekeeper gets compensation for honey contaminated by glyphosate:
In order to keep his field free from unwelcome insects, a farmer in Brandenburg applied lavishly glyphosate.
Because the poison ended up in the honey of a neighboring beehive, compensation was now due.
My favorite story today: A ring to rule them
My colleague Nike Laurenz is amazed at the manners and customs of young people when they propose marriage.
There are a lot of couples around her who get engaged in the traditional way because they find it romantic, Nike said.
A women's magazine even published a »5-step guide for engagement rings«.
Is that contemporary?
The engagement process itself is often like in old movies.
“The man kneels down in front of the woman and presents her with a box.
Big surprise, tears, then putting on the ring - and bang: photo.« My colleague is not happy about this old-fashioned fuss: »I was hoping we would be further along.« Her reasoning is very amusing - and plausible.
Read the full story here: A ring to rule them
What we recommend at SPIEGEL+ today
Why members of the Bundestag are now trembling for their jobs:
Ruppert Stüwe has been in the Bundestag since September, but now he is one of those MPs who could soon be kicked out of parliament again.
About the consequences of a choos of chaos.
The old guerrilla is the hope of the young:
the many female voters in particular brought about a turning point in Colombia - the leftist Gustavo Petro won the run-off election and will govern for the next four years.
In his victory speech, he called for reconciliation.
"It's cheaper to commit crimes against humanity than to uncover them"
The United States has been investigating Australian journalist Julian Assange for 12 years for espionage.
Now the British government has ordered the extradition of the WikiLeaks founder.
How to proceed in this case.
The freedom of art also applies to bad art:
Are the Israelis supposed to be the new Nazis?
The debate about anti-Semitic artworks at the documenta in Kassel has been raging for days.
Depend?
No, endure.
Israel is not threatened by a few lousy works of art.
What is less important today: Capital chef with world class
Enlarge image
Big award for Dylan Watson-Brawn: He is Chef of the Year
Photo:
Sven Döring / THE MIRROR
Dylan Watson-Brawn, 29-year-old head chef at the Ernst restaurant in Berlin, was named Chef of the Year by Gault&Millau today.
The Canadian opened »Ernst« in 2017 in the working-class district of Wedding, in a city that is actually not exactly famous for the culinary ambitions of its residents.
Among other things, he is regarded as a virtuoso of Japanese preparation techniques.
According to the experts from »Gault&Millau«, Watson-Brawn's creations have something that »remains a rarity in top cuisine: a clear, unmistakable vision«.
Typo of the day
, now corrected: Changing winds had caused the fire to spread widely.
Cartoon of the Day:
Heating
And tonight?
Could you have fun with SPIEGEL WISSEN's new daily quiz under the motto "What do I know?"
In it, my colleagues present seven questions, seven days a week.
The general knowledge quiz revolves around politics, economics, science, culture, sports, history and entertainment.
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What's the appeal of this type of entertainment?
The writer George Bernard Shaw, whom I mentioned earlier in this "Evening Situation," knew that too.
"The downside of intelligence is that you're constantly being forced to learn."
A lovely evening.
Yours sincerely,
Wolfgang Hoebel
Here you can order the »Situation in the Evening« by e-mail.