Pascual worked for
USAID from 1983 to 1995 in Sudan, South Africa and Mozambique, and as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Europe and Eurasia. From July 1998 to January 2000, Pascual served as Special Assistant to the President and NSC Senior Director for
Russia,
Ukraine and Eurasia, and from 1995 to 1998 as Director for the same region, from October 2000 until May 2003, as the
U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.[9][10] When the
Melnychenkorecordings of
Leonid Kuchma became known, Pascual revealed that the tapes are genuine, undistorted, unaltered, and not manipulated because of the conclusion from
FBIElectronic Research Facility's analysis of the original recording device and the original recording found that there are not unusual sounds which would indicate a tampering of the recording, the recording is continuous with no breaks, and there is no manipulation of the digital files.[11][12] These recordings, known as Kuchmagate, confirmed Kuchma's involvement in the assassination by decapitation of
Georgiy Gongadze and Kuchma's unwavering support for
Vladimir Putin during the
Cali cocaine cartel money laundering through the Putin-owned German firm St. Petersburg Real Estate Holding Company (
German: St. Peterburg Immobilien und Beteiligungs AG) (SPAG).[13][14][15][16][a][b] His support for the recordings' authenticity directly led to the
Orange Revolution of 2004 in Ukraine.
He was then named Assistance Coordinator for Europe and Eurasia.[32] In 2004, he was named Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization at the
US Department of State.[33]
In 2015, Pascual worked as vice president and Director of the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the
Brookings Institution[34] where he presided over the creation of the Brookings Doha Center and the Brookings-Tsinghua Center.
Selected by President
Barack Obama as ambassador to Mexico, he was confirmed by the
United States Senate on August 7, 2009.[10] He presented his credentials to the Mexican government on August 9, 2009[10] and personally to
PresidentFelipe Calderón on October 21, 2009.[35] Pascual submitted his resignation as Ambassador to Mexico on March 19, 2011 in part due to tensions with Calderón.[36] Tensions with President Calderón arose as a result of the
WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables in which Pascual criticized the Mexican military's ability or willingness to fight the Mexican drug cartels. Pascual is considered to be the first casualty of the Wikileaks affair.[37][38][39]
^Markus Rese was CEO of Frankfurt based SPAG which was linked to
Vladimir Putin,
Herman Gref and Russian criminal groups who had transferred money to SPAG through a Romanian bank.[17][18] Russian co-owner of the SPAG's joint venture was the government of Saint-Petersburg with 882,500 shares or 27.58% stake and Vladimir Putin, then the municipal official, who was a member of the board from 1992 to 2000 with 200 shares held as a controlling or blocking stake through
Vladimir Smirnov since 17 December 1994. The second largest stake in SPAG was 742,176 shares or a 23.19% stake which was held by the
Unterschleißheim based
Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank. Baader Wertpapierhandelsbank sold a stake in KST investments to
Kurt Ochner (born 1953) who was one of the largest fund managers in the Frankfurt
Neuer Markt, which gained substantial investments through an alleged speculation bubble from its establishment on 10 March 1997 until its peak on 10 March 2001 during the
dot-com bubble and then collapsed until it closed on 5 June 2003, through the 1990 established Luxembourg based
Julius Baer investment fund, which is associated with
Bank Julius Bär a Zurich based private bank known for its wealth management. During the late 1990s, Marian von Korff (born 17 May 1966
Pfaffenhofen,
Upper Bavaria), who is close to Ochner, was an advisor to the Luxembourg based fund VMR Strategie Quadrat and the owner of the 1994 established Fair Invest GmbH and other firms which had IPOs with the Neuer Markt and gave Korff very large returns on his investments including some with the brothers Florian and
Thomas Haffa such as EM-Entertainment Munich, Merchandising, Film und Fernsehen GmbH (EM.TV) of the
Kirch Group.[13][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]
^Березовский, Борис (Berezovsky, Boris) (24 June 2003).
"Новый передел. Что делать?" [New redistribution. What to do?]. Коммерсантъ (in Russian). No. №129 (2732). Archived from
the original on 16 June 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2020. {{
cite news}}: |number= has extra text (
help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^Пономарев, Игорь (Ponomarev, Igor) (15 December 2006).
"Риск - часть нашей профессии" [Risk is part of our profession]. Национальный Банковский Журнал (nbj.ru) (in Russian). Archived from
the original on 30 March 2022. Retrieved 29 March 2022.{{
cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^"Иван Гучков" [Ivan Guchkov]. Национальный Банковский Журнал (nbj.ru) (in Russian). 29 March 2022. Archived from
the original on 30 March 2022. Retrieved 29 March 2022.