Hold on a second. How did he buy this stuff? Didn’t your President, Demented Joe, sanction Putin 10 times over the past year?
Joe Biden was sanctioning OTHER oligarchs in Russia, and Putin was offering to buy them out for maybe pennies on the dollar, which was a GREAT force multiplier for his aggregate holdings.
I am no defender of Putin other than I do hold the opinion that the West was integral in creating the Ukrainian crisis because we keep pushing NATO east.
However, the sanctions have hurt Russia and pretty badly at that. The sanctions, combined with our idiotic act of war on the pipeline, have robbed them of easy profit from natural gas and oil. Yes, they found new markets (primarily China/India), but their costs were already high and now you have to factor increased shipping costs into the equation.
They are putting up a good front, but they are under severe economic strain. Anyone who thinks they are doing just fine is not very serious or they are repeating a partisan talking point. When your economy is mostly dependent on exports of natural resources and your recovery costs are higher than world average (a readily conceded point for decades) you need prices high enough to provide profit.
Their “fire sale” of natural resources to Asia is coming at a cost and it will be a cumulative one. It’s not just oil... they are selling metal ores and other raw materials below their recovery costs. Russia is sitting on a lot of cash reserves (I believe) but they are running through those the longer the war in the Ukraine drags on.
Perhaps this is why the “West” is so hellbent on fighting them until the last drop of Ukrainian blood (besides our military industrial elites benefiting)?
For perspective, California has about 1/4 of the population of Russia but twice the GDP. Pretty sure that is right. Much of the California “GDP” is stock based (tech sector) but as big as the tech sector is for Calfornia it is smaller as a percentage of GDP than natural gas exports.
The sanctions hurt and they have had a crippling effect on Russia well prior to the current Ukrainian conflict even if they don’t harm Putin’s wealth or status as the richest person in the world.
Daily Mail rubbish
Anyone want a primer on how Putin purged Yeltsins apartchik commissar cum oligarch ranks and replaced them with his own loyalists I can give a synopsis
The sensitive here won’t like it and howls will ensue
The facts are now bigotry in todays world
These former Soviets with help from Goldman and Morgan and other western private money sources underwrote these former commies to become resource and industry titans overnight as they took their govt entities private and allowed plum stock positions to themselves to gain control over said industries and resources
You know the big gas station with nukes
Ukraine did likewise but they weren’t purged …
Think secretary of energy becomes CEO of USA energy co overnight and a billionaire like you know “stroke of pen “