KREMLIN INVOLVEMENT IN BANK OF NEW YORK SCANDAL SEEMS CONFIRMED.

Bank of New York chief Thomas Renyi confirmed that Leonid Dyachenko, husband of President Boris Yeltsin’s younger daughter and adviser Tatyana, had two accounts in a Bank of New York branch in the Cayman Islands. U.S. investigators are looking at these accounts to determine possible connections with the Dyachenkos (Wall Street Journal, September 22). The accounts are said to have held US$2.7 million.

On September 21, the New York Times reported that last week the FBI claimed that Leonid Dyachenko and Pavel Borodin, head of the Kremlin’s property department, had moved “substantial” sums of money through the Bank of New York. Borodin isreportedly one of the top Russian officials being investigated in Switzerland for embezzlement and money laundering in connection with kickbacks paid by a Swiss construction firm to Russian government officials (see the Monitor, September 22).

The same article suggested that information about Borodin’s and Dyachenko’s alleged connection to the Bank of New York case came from senior Clinton administration officials (New York Times, September 21). This could mean that the Clinton administration knows that the evidence of high-level Kremlin corruption is overwhelming, and is thus trying to put some distance between it and its erstwhile strategic partner (the Yeltsin administration).

RUMOR MILL: FIGHT OR FLIGHT FOR YELTSIN?