MOSCOW, Aug. 13 -- What Errol Musk said about Ukraine in his interview with RIA Novosti was blunt enough that it will travel. What it means, and what it is worth as a claim, depends considerably on who is saying it and why.

"Ukraine became a place where bad elements from the corporations from the USA could go and play around with money, and launder money, and all that kind of thing," Errol Musk, father of US billionaire Elon Musk, told the Russian state news agency in an interview published Thursday, as reported by Sputnik. The elder Musk did not name specific corporations, identify specific transactions, or provide a mechanism by which he believes the laundering occurs. He did not describe sources for the claim or explain how he has kno...