WikiLeaks ready to drop a bombshell on Russia. But will Russians get to read about it?

The Kremlin had better brace itself for a coming wave of WikiLeaks disclosures about Russia, the website's founder, Julian Assange, told a leading Moscow newspaper Tuesday.

"We have [compromising materials] about Russia, about your government and businessmen," Mr. Assange told the pro-government daily Izvestia. "But not as much as we'd like... We will publish these materials soon."

He then dropped a hint that's likely to be nervously parsed in Russia's corridors of power: "We are helped by the Americans, who pass on a lot of material about Russia," to WikiLeaks, he said.

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Russian security experts say there probably won't be anything comparable to the huge archives of US military secrets from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that the website has recently published.

'A lot of interesting facts' about Russia

Assange and another WikiLeaks spokesperson, Kristinn Hrafnsson, who talked to the daily Kommersant Tuesday, refused to provide details. "Russians are going to find out a lot of interesting facts about their country," Mr. Hrafnsson told Kommersant, adding that WikiLeaks would soon be targeting "despotic regimes in China, Russia, and Central Asia" in a series of fresh document dumps.

"If they are going to disclose details of secret bank accounts and offshore businesses of the Russian elite, then the effect will be shocking," says Stanislav Belkovsky, president of the Kremlin-connected Institute of National Strategy. "Most Russians believe that political leaders and others have siphoned off billions of dollars into foreign accounts, but proof of something like that would be dynamite."

Will Russia see it in the media?

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