Putin
© Mikhail Klimentyev / Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Comment: The Western media's focus on Putin in the Panama Papers is pretty telling when the Russian president isn't even named once among the 11.5 million documents. That should give people a clue about the nature of this 'leak'.


Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he is not mentioned in the so-called Panama Papers on offshore activities, so the discussion about it is pointless.

"Your humble servant is not there, so there's nothing to talk about," Putin said at a media forum.

Musician Sergei Roldugin, listed in the Panama Papers leak, did try to run a business, but not a billion-dollar business, Vladimir Putin said.

"As for Sergei Pavlovich Roldugin...he is a very creative person. Many creative people in Russia, I don't know, maybe one in two if you look into it, try to do business. As far as I know, so did Sergei Pavlovich," Putin said at a media forum.

"But what kind of business is this? He is a minority shareholder in one of our companies and does earn some money there, but certainly not billions of dollars. This is nonsense, untrue," the president added.

On Sunday, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung exposed the alleged involvement of a number of former and current world leaders in offshore schemes by publishing materials it claimed came from Panama Ready to Cooperate in Potential Mossack Fonseca Legal Probe.

Mossack Fonseca has refused to validate the information contained in the leaks and accused reporters of gaining unauthorized access to its proprietary documents.