Russia – Page 7 – KCS Group Asia Ltd

Iran: A sorry state

Articles / Cyber-attacks, Due Diligence, Iran, Middle East, Russia, Sanctions, Terrorism / 04/2023

Failed states are those unable to maintain economic or political credibility and in a virtual state of collapse, incapable to fulfil the functions of a national executive. Rogue states are those openly funding and supporting action with extreme prejudice that goes against the social contract of the supposedly peaceful world order and which thus choose

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Russian cold wars: It’s all Greek to me

Articles / black money, Due Diligence, Greece, oil and gas, Oligarchs, Russia, Sanctions / 04/2023

Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, runs the ancient maxim: Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Today, we might update this to cavete a Graecis navibus navigantes – beware of Greeks sailing ships. Lloyds List has exposed, over the past six months, a fleet of tankers, registered in/owned by Greece and conducting operations in the waters of

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Divide and conquer: The Kremlin’s gambit

Articles / Corruption, Due Diligence, Kremlin, Oligarchs, Putin, Russia, Sanctions, Sergei Shoigu, Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Yuri Kovalchuk / 03/2023

Petrov’s Defence, known popularly as the Russian Game, is a chess opening based around symmetry: the second player matching the moves of the first through pawn, knight and so on, in a game that has a reputation for leading to protracted, difficult draws unless a player can seize upon a momentary advantage that may come

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Erdogan in Turkey: One last earthquake?

Articles / Due Diligence, Economy, Erdogan, Geopolitics, Russia, Turkey / 03/2023

Erdogan should be no stranger to seismology. This is, after all, the man who won ‘landslide’ victories in multiple Prime Ministerial and Presidential elections, the man whose Justice & Development party was heralded as shaking the foundations of Turkish civil society, the man who is no stranger to a political earthquake. Yet, last month’s devastating

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Getting all your ducks in a row

Articles / compliance, Due Diligence, Know Your Customer, Russia, Sanctions / 03/2023

The environment for winning and retaining business has rarely been more challenging. Most prominently, in geo-political terms, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the knock-on effects on politics and economies worldwide. In addition, the rising tensions between China and Taiwan, an escalated war of words and ideology between various delineations of ‘East’ and ‘West’, and

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The magic black money tree

Articles / black money, Corruption, Due Diligence, money-laundering, Russia, Sanctions / 02/2023

While walking through the edge of Utah’s Fishlake Forest, it is possible to cross over 100 acres and simultaneously pass forty thousand trees, and just one. This is because the colony of Pando Aspen trunks (‘I spread’) share a single underground root system, with each apparently individual tree simply being part of a larger, hidden,

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Modi, Putin and the future of India: Does truth still triumph?

Articles / China, Corruption, Democracy, Due Diligence, India, President Modi, Putin, Russia / 02/2023

If great minds think alike, then so too must great dictators. As the world emerged from pandemic lockdowns in December 2021, Russia’s President Putin made Narenda Modi of India the subject of only his second international visit in almost two years, and the first in a subsequent line of appearances in autocracies across Central Asia,

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Exile on Silk Road: The rise of the near abroad

Articles / Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Due Diligence, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, oil and gas, Russia / 01/2023

There is a case to be made among historians that the Silk Road was the eighth wonder of the world: not a monument in stone, but a monument to furthering the cause of humanity, allowing for the transmission of economic, cultural and political exchanges between East and West in a manner previously unthinkable and surviving

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Russia, Ukraine and Africa: Against the grain

Articles / Africa, China, Due Diligence, Global Threats, grain and wheat, humanitarian, Russia, Ukraine / 01/2023

Is Russia’s war in Ukraine a localised conflict, a regional war, or a global disaster? The military action concentrated on one country alone would suggest the first, the various nuclear- and cyber-threats against Europe the second, but global trends are increasingly confirming the third. It is possible to view the Russian invasion, and by extension

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Creating a Dictator

Articles / Corruption, Democracy, Due Diligence, Kremlin, Putin, Russia, Russian Business / 01/2023

The quagmire of a lengthy, painful, and ultimately unsuccessful campaign in Afghanistan in the 1980s is credited with hastening the demise of the Soviet Union. History could well be repeating, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine stretches into an eleventh month and domestic discontent with Putin’s war continues to rise. Could this be the trigger that

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