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MOSCOW — The reverberations from a leaked trove of Panamanian documents rippled through several nations on Thursday, with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia calling the exposure of a proliferation of shell companies and tax havens an American plot, while Iceland picked a new prime minister and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain admitted that he had profited from an offshore trust. After days of contention, Mr. Cameron admitted that he had earned money through an offshore trust established by his late father, who was named as a client of Mossack Fonseca, the law firm at the center of the documents known as the Panama Papers. Mr. Cameron told ITV News that he and his wife, Samantha, owned shares in Blairmore investment trust, before selling them for about £30,000, or $42,160, in 2010, the year he became prime minister. The dividends were taxed, Mr. Cameron said, adding that he had never tried to hide the fact that his parents were wealthy. He had, however, been on the defensive over the issue since Monday, when his office initially described the question of his investments as a “private matter.” The Panama Papers were also embarrassing for Mr. Cameron because they identified the British Virgin Islands, an overseas territory of Britain, as a major center of offshore activity. That prompted critics to call into question Mr. Cameron’s claims to be leading the international fight against tax evasion. “David Cameron, who described the use of complex tax avoidance schemes as ‘morally wrong,’ has been forced to admit that he held shares in a fund now linked to tax avoidance,” said Tom Watson, the deputy leader of Britain’s opposition Labour Party. In Moscow, Mr. Putin dismissed reports based on the legal documents, which showed that some of his close associates had moved about $2 billion through offshore accounts, calling the accusations an American plot to try to destabilize Russia. Mr. Putin, in his first public remarks on the subject, noted that none of the accusations were aimed at him directly, because he was not named in the papers, even if the international coverage has focused on him. “Your humble servant is not there; there is nothing to talk about,” he said at a public forum for regional journalists in St. Petersburg that was broadcast live by state-run television. Mr. Putin also defended the cellist Sergei P. Roldugin, an old, close friend who was named in the leaked papers. Mr. Roldugin was at the center of a scheme to hide money from Russian state banks, the reports said. Mr. Putin said that Mr. Roldugin had tried his hand at business to support his love of music. “He is a minority shareholder in one of our companies and makes some money out of it, but not billions of dollars, of course,” Mr. Putin said. “That is nonsense.” Mr. Roldugin used the money to import musical instruments, Mr. Putin said. “Almost all the money he earned he spent on musical instruments that he bought abroad,” he said, adding that Mr. Roldugin recently began donating the instruments to government institutions. On paper, Mr. Roldugin’s shares in enterprises linked to friends of Mr. Putin, especially Bank Rossiya, give him a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars. “I am proud to have friends like him,” Mr. Putin said, calling Mr. Roldugin a “brilliant musician.” There was an immediate reaction on social media, with many people questioning the president’s version of events. Sergei Parkhomenko, a journalist, wrote on Facebook that at $6 million each, the $2 billion reported to have been stashed offshore was enough to buy more than 300 of the rare violins, cellos and other stringed instruments made in the 17th and 18th centuries by Antonio Stradivari. Putin’s Way Articles in this series are examining how President Vladimir V. Putin’s system of personalized state-sponsored capitalism allows him to wield power at home and abroad. President Vladimir V. PutinPART 1 Private Bank Fuels Fortunes of Putin’s Inner Circle President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, left, and Arkady R. Rotenberg, the chairman of a publishing house that has benefited from government maneuvers.PART 2 Putin’s Friend Profits in Purge of Schoolbooks Sergei V. Pugachev, a self-exiled Russian banker.PART 3 Even Loyalty No Guarantee Against Putin President Vladimir V. Putin and Aleksei B. Miller, Gazprom’s leader.PART 4 How Putin Forged a Pipeline Deal That Derailed Mr. Putin also rolled out a standard Kremlin excuse for any bad news regarding Russia from abroad. Russia, he said, deprives the West of its monopoly on economic and military power, which irks the West. “In this connection, attempts are made to weaken us from within, make us more acquiescent and make us toe their line,” he said. “What is the easiest way of doing this? It is to spread distrust for the ruling authorities and the bodies of power within society and to set people against each other.” Mr. Putin noted that WikiLeaks had described the leaked Panamanian documents as an American-funded plot. “We now know from WikiLeaks that officials and state agencies in the United States are behind all this,” said Mr. Putin. The WikiLeaks organization posted several somewhat contradictory messages on Twitter about the subject. “US govt funded #PanamaPapers attack story on Putin via USAID,” said one on Tuesday, for example. “Some good journalists but no model for integrity.” Today’s Headlines: European Morning Get news and analysis from Europe and around the world delivered to your inbox every day in the European morning. But after the Russian state news media began citing WikiLeaks as proof that the Panama revelations had been an American plot, the WikiLeaks Twitter account said, “Claims that #PanamaPapers themselves are a ‘plot’ against Russia are nonsense.” In Argentina, a federal prosecutor sought to open a criminal investigation into the business activities of President Mauricio Macri that were made public by the leaked papers. The prosecutor, Federico José Delgado, said in a document that Mr. Macri’s involvement in offshore companies warranted a judicial investigation, chiefly because he did not disclose the activity in required declarations of his assets. The leaked papers showed that Mr. Macri was a director of an offshore company, Fleg Trading Ltd., which was owned by his father. It was incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in 2009. Mr. Macri was separately found to have been a director at a second offshore company, Kagemusha S.A., that also involved his father. Mr. Macri’s office said he had never been a shareholder at Fleg Trading and so was not required to disclose his involvement. “Everything’s in order,” Mr. Macri told the local news media this week. There has been no official comment on the second company. On Thursday, Mr. Macri, who campaigned on fighting corruption, reiterated that he was innocent. “I have nothing to hide,” he said during a short speech to announce a freedom of information bill. And in Iceland, Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson, the country’s agriculture and fisheries minister, said that he had secured President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson’s backing to become prime minister. The announcement came after Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson stepped down as prime minister when the leaks showed that he had owned an offshore firm with his wife. ...
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