In a sensational report last week, Russia announced a block-buster deal, the long planned privatization sale of nearly 20 percent of government held shares in the oil giant Rosneft, to Glencore trading company and its joint venture partner, the Qatar sovereign fund. As noted here , the price of $11 billion made global headlines as the biggest foreign investment in Russia since the Ukraine conflict and provided a much needed cash infusion for the Russian government. Russian media also trumpeted the news that sanctioned Russian industries now seemed able to raise large amounts of financing from recognized western financial and banking sources. This has set off sanction alarms at the U.S. Treasury Department that will certainly lead to an investigation into the deal’s financing. But many in the Russian press are extremely skeptical that the deal took place as reported. Instead they are convinced that Rosneft itself, through a […]