Help from Russia channelled to soc dems by Papa Ossinovski

Photo: Peeter Langovits

As the government changed in springtime, there was this joke making rounds. The fresh soc dem education minister Jevgeni Ossinovski calls his father on the phone: «Dad, I did ask you to just buy me a portfolio! ... What do you mean it was cheaper with ministry attached?»

The Dad, Oleg Ossinovski is Estonia’s wealthiest man – according to business daily Äripäev, he’s worth close to €300m. The main business and income for Oleg Ossinovski is the railway company Spacecom Trans. Few people know, however, about the London listed Globaltrans Investments PLC – a majority owner of Spacecom with a whopping 62.25 percent of the company.

Globaltrans Investments belongs to Russian billionaires and cites Cyprus as its home. The firm makes money by millions of wagons – in 2012, for instance, made nearly €136m of profits.

Globaltrans has some dozen subsidiaries: most of these are registered in Russia, a couple of them in Cyprus, one in Ukraine and two in Estonia, both linked to Spacecom.

Considering the close connections in Russia between business and power, it gets interesting to see who are some major owners of Globaltrans: Konstantin Nikolajev, Nikita Mišin and, a name most interesting for Estonia, Andrei Filatov, all with exactly 11.5 percent of the enterprise.

Mr Filatov made himself a name in Estonia a bit before the 2007 Bronze Night events when then economy minister Edgar Savisaar attempted to grant him citizenship for special services towards Estonia.

Andrus Ansip as Prime Minister at the time said this was not going to happen. «The issue has never once been voted in the government and, obviously, as soon as a vote gets underway we’d have to seek for new coalition partners,» Mr Ansip said in December of 2006.

A problem, then, was an anti-Estonia film which Mr Filatov was associated with and which Mr Ansip called a botch. «The movie is surely by no Fellini,» said Mr Ansip. In its annual review, Mr Filatov was also singled out by Estonian Security Police, the Kapo.

Mr Filatov defended himself and said he lacked any political ambitions. «I am not an enhancer or initiator of the documentary «Estonia – crossroad of history», neither was I the film’s author, co-author or editor,» announced Mr Filatov. «When making a donation into the historic fund Monument, the main activity of which is maintenance of graves of the soldiers, I first and foremost acted out of a deep respect towards those that fought in World War 2.»

But before Mr Ansip said what he said, in an opinion article in Postimees, the Centre Party chairman Mr Savisaar managed to speak in defence of Mr Filatov: «In the domain I’m responsible for in the government, Andrei Filatov definitely has done great service to Estonia and I had no reason not to present the application to the government. Naturally, I asked therewith to do the necessary security check, the results of which I want to diligently inspect. And there are others in the list regarding whom I have the same desire.»

This is a brief background regarding a current business partner of Oleg Ossinovski, or, rather, a major owner of one of his sources of income. One will not exaggerate when claiming that Mr Ossinovski’s life and success largely depends of the abovementioned Russian billionaires. Globaltrans Grupp is among the largest private enterprises in Russia, involved in railway business. And railway business is direct line to Russia’s power elite. And as Oleg Ossinovski has also shown interest towards building Rail Baltica in Estonia, Russian money may head up in the very Europe via Estonia along the railway tracks.

Continuing with the links, remembering the backgrounds: another man who, next to Globaltrans, makes big money in Russian in the same field, is Sergei Petrov – a man known to us from Mr Savisaar’s Eastern money scandal, whose business bank accounts were used to transfer money to build the [Russian Orthodox] church in Lasnamäe, Tallinn.

Also, he was among the bunch who, in the summer of 2010 in Kiltsi Manor overheard as president of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin told Mr Savisaar he’d give Centre Party €1.5m for Estonian parliamentary elections campaign, a third of which would be given in cash and the rest transferred against invoices.

In the Russian economy, this is the same coterie with similar interests and who know each other very well.

Since his son went into politics, Oleg Ossinovski has handed out money to soc dems. This September, for instance, the father supported the son’s party with €30,000. After last year’s local elections, when his son got a super result in Narva, Oleg Ossinovski did a €50,000 transfer to soc dems.

Right at the start of his political career in 2011, during Riigikogu elections, Jevgeni Ossinovski donated a total of €30,000 to the party. Afterwards, the financial injections by current education minister have not been as hefty as hoped for: in 2012, he donated €1,200; in 2013, when the local elections took place, he gave €5,500; and over the three first quarters of this year Jevgeni Ossinovski’s support to the party stands at €3,275.

Increasingly, the soc dems are going under Jevgeni Ossinovski control. A kind of a hermit in the party, he acts alone, but he needs to be considered and he is. As is also true regarding his closest comrade Jaak Allik who allegedly is going about Narva nowadays and promising people to get them the citizenship for special services.

The «grand old» soc dems like Eiki Nestor, Sven Mikser and to a degree also Indrek Saar (though, as the party’s secretary-general i.e. one of the money-seekers, he is somewhat in a forced situation) are not overly excited about the paths chosen by Mr Ossinovski. Increasingly, the soc dems are relying on the Russian vote, as also underlined by latest party popularity polls.

According to TNS Emor poll ordered by Public Broadcasting (ERR) this November, soc dems succeeded in increasing their support among the Russian speaking voters on account of Centre Party. As told ERR by polls expert Aivar Voog, this was due to the scandal around education minister Mr Ossinovski and formed finance minister Jürgen Ligi. While in October soc dems enjoyed 13 percent support among Russian-speaking voters, in November the percentage already stood at 22. Over the same period of time, Centre Party popularity among Russian voters fell from 81 to 72 percent.

There are those who view Mr Ossinovski’s activities as education minister with great concern, if not fear: the man is working towards relaxing the rulers regarding the requirement of 60 percent of studies in Russian language gymnasiums to be taught in Estonian. It is suspected that after elections – should this coalition continue – the current education plan will be totally demolished.

Yesterday, Postimees forwarded Oleg Ossinovski some simple questions: «How close are Spacecom’s relations with Russia? Do we have to be somewhat careful regarding Russian money? How mixed are business and politics and supporting one political power? Is Oleg Ossinovski interested in being also involved in the Rail Baltica process i.e. build the railway?» Written reply was promised, but it failed to come by the time the newspaper went to print.