Rodion_Romanovic Fri Jan 22, 2021 8:53 pm
Tsavo Lion wrote:(...)This 2nd group stays out of politics & is allowed to plunder the people as long as it pays a tribute to him in the form of real estate. yachts, planes, etc.
As far as I understood, when Putin came.to power in 2000 the situation was really bad with the oligarchs, who basically controlled the state.
As president he was stronger than anyone of them taken singularly, but could not win against them all.
So he tried a compromise:
He told them that if they stayed out of media and politics (since they basically stole their companies in the 90s and got rich in non honest ways), payed taxes in Russia, employed people and stopped bringing money abroad they could have kept most of their wealth.
Khodorkovsky did basically the exact opposite and even tried to give yukos to foreign partners (he was also implicated with commissioned murders, etc), it was absolutely necessary to make an example out of him (and a few others that crossed the lines). As far as those killed abroad, it is not fully clear what happened, but is highly possible that was either a false flag or a settling of scores between them and some other ex partners in criminal activities.
As far as the other oligarchs, most of them now are behaving and paying taxes: they are definitely not worst than most of America's billionaires.
In an ideal world people that got rich by stealing from the state in the 90s should not be rewarded for it, but unfortunately we are far from an ideal world, and if they are now "reformed", and their industries are bringing wealth to the state t is much easier to keep the status quo.