Costs and Benefits (14): The winners were...

 ...Igor Sechin and Sergey Lavrov.

The Holocaust photography or tell-tale photos from the Nazi death camps had never been a negotiating factor of any significance against the CPUSA. 

Right from the Cold War days, the Russian weapons bureaus had advanced weaponry, what they didn't display at the military parades, they also had some information on the Partition of Poland from Tsarist sources. Why would the Russians allow CPUSA or Trump to suffer because of Holocaust photography?

ii. The first setback to Igor Sechin and Sergey Lavrov had been Ajit's reluctance, rather his refusal, to pick up Holocaust photography-related hostilities with the Ambanis. 

By 2007, when the Communists had done the unthinkable, floating a Jewish lease (Wolfowitz-Dershowitz) without including the lease family, Moscow had little option but to start beating the World War drums. Putin's rant in Munich (2007) was a stance, going to war against the US was not Russia's preferred choice.

iii. Antara, as we know, had been left to the mercy of Canada and a Treasury that swung between various shades of Communism. The Germans tend to take pity on the likes of Antara, not concede they were equal partners. 

Not even when Russia was on the backfoot, as it was in 2007, was Germany willing to take advantage of that geopolitical crisis, denigrating Antara seemed far more important.

iv. For the Germans, the world of journalism/media was a minor entity compared to the construction and realty sector, the latter would always be necessary and thriving and easy to scale-up in a global format. Hence 2007 and Wolfowitz-Dershowitz, the wisdom of those very people who were not yet absolved of a genocide against European Jewry.

Hence the relatives rejecting Antara. Black was not the colour of BT nor a reference to African-Americans nor any particular variant of fascism. 

Black had been the colour of Antara's misery since 2007.  

v. Well, here we were in 2025, and how many legit leases had German Chancellors, the Merkels and the Merzes, the global oilmen and the thriving construction industry signed between themselves?

Maybe lower the pedestal a few notches?

May 16, 2025.