普京真有20億美元的祕密資產嗎？

A Russian banker has reportedly tried to argue that President Vladimir Putin does not have vast secret wealth because he is "very much dedicated to his job."

During an interview in Moscow with CNBC television, part of the U.S. NBC network, Russian banker Andrey Kostin cast doubt on a $2 billion money trail leading to Putin, as revealed in financial documents known as the Panama Papers.

Kostin, the chief executive of Russia's state-owned VTB bank, said, "I don't believe that Mr. Putin has $2 billion, because even if he wanted to have, I don't know how he is going to spend them,” Kostin said in a portion of the interview published online. The banker said he does not think that “earning private wealth" is one of Putin's personal priorities, and that no one has ever seen evidence of such wealth possessed by the Russian president.

By assets, VTB Bank is Russia's second-biggest, after Sberbank, which also is state-owned. The government has a 60.9 percent stake in VTB, but Kostin denied the Kremlin has influenced his bank's operations.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) reported in April that suspicious payments made by “Putin's cronies may have, in some cases, been intended as payoffs, possibly in exchange for Russian government aid or contracts.” The secret documents suggested that much of the money originally came from a bank in Cyprus, the ICIJ said, “that, at the time, was majority owned by the Russian state-controlled VTB Bank.”

The documents also showed dozens of transactions, over more than a decade, involving people or companies linked to Putin, who has been in power at the Kremlin since 2000. Among those identified in the document were Putin's long-time friend, cellist Sergei Roldugin, and the wife of Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. Putin has admitted there were transactions between him and Roldugin, but said there was no evidence of illegal activity. Roldugin has dismissed any suggestion that he was either a custodian or a conduit for Putin's money or assets.據報道，一名俄羅斯銀行家試圖爭論稱，普京總統並沒有鉅額祕密財產，因爲他“非常專注於他的工作”。

俄羅斯國有銀行外貿銀行(VTB)的首席行政官安德烈·科斯京(Andrey Kostin)在莫斯科接受美國全國廣播公司財經頻道(CNBC)的採訪時，對《巴拿馬文件》中泄露的有關普京的20億美元的蛛絲馬跡表示懷疑。

科斯京還說：“我不相信普京先生有20億美元，因爲即使他想要那麼多錢，我都不知道他怎麼花得掉。” 科斯京的採訪片段被公佈在CNBC的網站上。科斯京說，他不認爲“賺取私人財富”是普京生活的重點，他還補充說，從來沒有人看到過這位俄羅斯總統擁有這麼多財富的證據。

以資產來計算，外貿銀行是俄羅斯第二大銀行，僅次於國營的聯邦儲蓄銀行(Sberbank)。俄羅斯政府在外貿銀行持有60.9%股權，但科斯京對政府幹預銀行運作的說法予以否認。

國際調查記者聯盟(ICIJ)四月報道稱，由普京好友進行的某些可疑付款有可能是作爲換取俄羅斯政府援助或合同的回報。該組織稱：“這些祕密文件顯示，這些錢有很多源自於塞浦路斯的一家銀行，而當時這家銀行的大部分爲俄羅斯國家控制的外貿銀行所持有。”

這些文件還顯示了10多年間數十起涉及與普京相關的人或公司的交易，包括普京的老朋友，大提琴演奏家謝爾蓋·羅爾杜金(Sergei Roldugin)以及普京發言人德米特里·佩斯科夫(Dmitry Peskov)的妻子。普京承認和羅爾杜金之間有交易往來，但是說沒有從事違法活動的證據。普京自2000年以來一直把持着克里姆林宮的權力。羅爾杜金對有人提出他充當了普京金錢和財產的保管人或流通管道的說法不予理會。