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Showing posts with label Vladimir Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vladimir Putin. Show all posts
Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Written by  Ilya Matveeva.

Hostages to the Kremlin: Russia’s Billionaires Between War and Nationalization

Russia’s billionaire class has recovered its pre-war collective wealth, but the conditions sustaining that recovery are already exhausted. 

Western sanctions have closed off the internationalization that previously gave the oligarchs leverage over the Kremlin, while wartime nationalization has reminded them that domestic property rights remain conditional on political loyalty. 

Andrey Melnichenko’s profile in The Economist - a public declaration of fealty to Vladimir Putin wrapped in the language of sovereignty - exemplifies the class’s impotence. 

Ilya Matveev argues that the safety valve of exit is gone, organizational capacity has atrophied after twenty-five years of enforced political abstinence, and democratization would threaten oligarchic fortunes as severely as Putinism. Russia’s tycoons are, in his conclusion, Putin’s hostages and will share his regime’s fate. [AN]

Among the eight billionaires removed from the Russian Forbes list in 2026, only four were dropped because their businesses became less valuable. Three others had their assets nationalized by the state: Dmitry Kamenshchik lost Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, Konstantin Strukov his gold-mining operations, and Denis Shtengelov his food conglomerate. 

Finally, one person, Yandex founder Arkady Volozh, was removed from the list following his renunciation of Russian citizenship.

Continue @ ESSF.

The Russia’s Billionaires Dilemma 🪶 Putin Threatens Them, But Protects Their Wealth

Jim Duffy ✍ Tweet by Professor Roman Sheremeta, Associate Professor of Economics, Case Western Reserve University.
 
On May 16, 1940, the British newspaper Daily Mirror published this cartoon, dedicating it to those who were calling for negotiations with Hitler. In the image, a man holds two posters reading: “Peace by negotiation” and “Make a deal with Hitler now!
Many years have passed, but nothing has changed. Some people remain delusional, still believing that appeasing aggressors will somehow stop the aggression.

The point is equally accurate in 2025. Many westerners do not understand the way leadership functions in autocratic regimes. Western democracies operate through compromise and consensus building. Many decisions are based on the model of looking to construct a win-win for both sides, or at least try to avoid humiliating the other side by making a deal acceptable to all.

Autocratic regimes never function that way. They are dominated by strong leaders, and approach all negotiations on a win-lose basis: I win, you lose. Their model of leadership is zero-sum. I get my way. If you disagree with me, I don't care. I will bulldoze you out of the way to get my way. I am not interested in looking to find a compromise. I am interested only in winning.

Those in the leadership who dare to even question them get kicked out, or as with Stalin, Hitler, Putin and others, killed. Ernst Röhm, the head of the Sturmabteilung (SA), had been one of Hitler's oldest and closest personal friends. Yet he agreed to have Röhm shot.

Many of the leading Bolsheviks that took power in 1917 were ultimately eliminated by Stalin. Putin routinely has his enemies 'windowed' - thrown out of the windows of their office or home. Officially it was spun as a tragic accident, but neighbours recounted different stories, of violent scuffles and figures being physically forced out of windows and flung to their death on Putin's orders.

Staff, oligarchs, rivals, critics, troublesome journalists, etc were all murdered. Strong potential rivals who could have beaten Putin in elections were debarred from election, then arrested on trumped up charges before mysteriously dying in prisons from poisoning, 'accidental' falls down flights of stairs, in one case one of those prisoners was 'accidentally' locked out of the prison in a sealed courtyard where he died of hypothermia.

Putin poisoned enemies in numerous countries. Despite the Bucharest Memorandum making it clear that Russia permanently accepted Ukraine's independence, and guaranteeing never to interfere in Ukraine, Putin systematically broke it. In the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, Putin had the leading candidate he opposed, Viktor Yushchenko, poisoned. Against the odds he survived, but with irreversible physical damage. Putin then directly rigged the election with mass ballot box-stuffing, the destruction of ballot boxes in areas supportive of Yushchenko. The outcome of the election was a 'victory' for the most pro-Putin candidate, Viktor Yanukovych.

Courts rarely overturn election results on principle, unless the evidence that it was stolen is overwhelming as the people are sovereign. They only overturn elections if there is cast-iron evidence that the election does not represent the will of the people, but has been unambiguously stolen.

The evidence of that in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election was overwhelming. In one district 127% of voters turned out - a mathematical impossibility. Vast numbers of new names appeared on the electoral register at the last minute. Voters travelled to vote only to find someone had already voted in their name. Areas had a supposed 100% turn out rate before the first voter turned out to vote, with ballot boxes so stuffed they could not even get their vote into the ballot box.

International observers from international verification bodies described the election as one of the most corrupt and compromised they had ever seen. Putin even congratulated Yanukovych on his 'win' before the votes had been counted.

The Ukrainian Supreme Court declared the second round vote null and void because of the proven scale of falsification of results. It ordered a re-run, this time under time strict monitoring and verification of the identities of all voters, and with all ballot boxes checked and made sure to be empty and not stuffed. In the re-run, this time strictly verified, Viktor Yushchenko won comfortably with 52.77% to Viktor Yanukovych's 44.85%.

Peace activists often make the fundamental mistake of thinking people can negotiate with autocratic rulers to find a 'win-win' compromise that satisfies all. That is not however how autocracies make decision. They play a zero-sum game: I win, you lose.

It was why appeasement entirely failed in the 1930s. Well-meaning figures like British prime ministers Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, haunted by memories of World War I, sought desperately to avoid a new war by endless compromises - thinking compromises, something they were used to in British politics and which they thought would build trust. They allowed Hitler break the Treaty of Versailles in the invasion of the Rhineland, the increase in the size of the German Army, the recreation of the Luftwaffe.

What they did not understand was that Hitler did not see their willingness to compromise and allow Versailles be broken as good faith and bridge-building, but as evidence that Britain and France were weak, indecisive and easy to manipulate.

By the end of 1938 Chamberlain, having signed the Munich Agreement allowing Germany to take the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, was beginning to distrust Hitler and doubt his bone-fides. In March 1939, six months after signing the Munich Agreement that promises "peace in our time", Hitler broke it and invaded Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain finally realised that he and his predecessors had been naive, and failed to understand the fundamental difference in how autocracies work. They do not see compromise as bridge-building and trust-building, but as evidence of weakness - a weakness Hitler then exploited over and over. Hitler's deals were all about exploiting the weakness of appeasers. His leadership was all about zero-sum, not compromise. The more you compromised, the weaker your hand and he more saw you as weak.

As one historian put it, Chamberlain and Deladier in their negotiations with Hitler in Munich thought they were playing draughts, with one set of rules, while Hitler was playing chess, and by the time they realised they were playing different games with different rules, he had checkmated them.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chamberlain had slashed British defence spending. He realised belatedly to his horror that he had made a monumental mistake, and that Hitler had the intention of invading more and more countries, including Britain. He belatedly as prime minister reversed the defence cuts.

He correctly judged that the most important element of the armed forces, one that could be properly built up quickly, was the RAF. It was Chamberlain's realisation of that, in the nick of time, that enabled Britain to win the Battle of Britain and that led to the postponement of his planned invasion of Britain, Operation Sea Lion, as he lacked crucial air superiority.

That also prevented Hitler's plan to invade Ireland, Operation Green, in late 1940, as Hitler guessed correctly (or via a spy somewhere) that Ireland and Britain were likely in a secret defence pact, and the RAF would severely disrupt his planned invasion through Waterford.

Even if the Nazi soldiers eventually got to land, in the delay, British soldiers, as part of the deal with Ireland, would have been brought from Northern Ireland by train down to attack German troops. (The British support for the Irish army's defence of Ireland was to be funded by £50,000 deposited by the Irish government in banks in Drogheda and Navan which the British military could access as their trains passed through both towns.)

The well-meaning naivety of the appeasers failed because the democracies failed to grasp that decision-making by autocrats is not based on compromises and looking for a win-win, but based on a zero-sum 'I win. You lose'.

We see exactly the same with Putin today in his supposed peace deal on Ukraine. It is a classic zero-sum: Ukraine cannot join NATO, cannot have European troops as peacekeepers, must slash the size of its armed forces, and lose critical strategic locations - leaving it, like Czechoslovakia after the loss of the Sudetenland, impossible to defend.

Trump, with his usual cluelessness, and Witkoff with his incompetence, doesn't get the tactics between Russia's demands, but Ukraine does, as do European leaders, and know it would be suicidal, and so could never accept a deal that left it wide open to a third Russian invasion. It would be as fatal as the Munich Agreement was for Czechoslovakia as it stripped it of its defensible border lands, which were in the Sudetenland.

Negotiating with an autocratic regime like Putin's is pointless if one imagines one is looking for compromises and a middle ground that is a win-win. Autocrats don't do compromises. Their world is about a zero-sum: they must win, you must lose. Any deal agreed is only, to borrow Albert Reynolds' famous phrase, a 'temporary little arrangement' they will break having tricked you into making potentially fatal compromises. In Munich, giving Germany the Sudetenland left Czechoslovakia fatally weakened as it was the Sudetenland was critical to Czechoslovakia's defence.

In a series of interviews after his resignation, Richard Nixon was asked about doing deals with the then Soviet Union. He said deals only worked if the effects of breaking a deal would prove catastrophic for the Soviet Union, meaning it was in their interests to honour it. If there was no self-interest in honouring it, Russia, like other autocracies who lived by zero-sum, would break it whenever it suited them. That was his experience in Congress, as Vice-President under Eisenhower, and as President. It was simply how autocracies operate. They must in effect be trapped in a deal they dare not break without devastating consequences. In effect, the deal must be based on compromise, but with a zero-sum behind it: if they break it, they lose.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Zero Sum Autocracies

Jim Duffy ✍One of the perversities in small countries like Ireland of the far left's hate for Ukraine, and their endless swallowing of Putin's talking points, is that they do not understand how their country's status and even survival is linked directly to Ukraine's.
 
To understand why, one needs to go back through history. For centuries, large states were dominant and used their dominance to use, invade and extinguish small countries at will. Small countries were at their mercy.
 
From the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) on, efforts were made to create a body of international rules that granted rights to states. However it wasn't until the late 19th century that a more detailed body of international law regulating the conduct of states emerged. However it had a weakness. States couldn't be forced to sign up, so end up being lured in by the fact that many conventions aren't able to be enforced, but were a kind of gentlemen's agreements that people would obey based on an unenforceable promise.
 
After World War I, the League of Nation was created to introduce an international structure that would bring countries together in one body. It too however was weak, and crucially the US never joined and the USSR ended up suspended over its behaviour.
 
The United Nations tried to create a new stronger structure but it too was fundamentally weakened. To lure major powers in. Five major powers were giving indefinite vetoes in the Security Council, which ended up preventing it from functioning as the major enforcer of the rules based order. The major five, Britain, France, the US, the USSR and China (until the 1970s the Republic of China, later on the People's Republic of China) routinely vetoed vital decisions to protect themselves or friends.
 
A core principle in the conventions, the League, and then the UN, is the central absolute rights of state:

1. The right to sovereignty, and 2. The right to territorial integrity. In other words, a state, whether large or a microstate, had a right to exist based on the will of its people, and no country had a right to extinguish it, and its territorial integrity was sacrosanct - meaning its territory could not be broken up and regions taken by other states. Those principles are written in the UN Charter.
 
That radically changed international affairs, and severely limited the powers of large states while protecting the rights of small states. It meant a common feature of European history in the past, the conquering and annexing of small states by large ones, to a large extend died out. Not totally. China seized Tibet, for example. But the the constant annexing of small countries, as Prussia did for example to Hanover, died out.
 
The UN Charter amounted to a dramatic rebalancing of the powers in favour of small countries, making their position more protected. Some large powers, used to throwing their weight around, and seizing smaller countries' territories, were more than miffed about the rules as they developed. They were also miffed at rules limiting what they could do in war, rules on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and human rights granted in international law based on sex, religious belief, on ethnic or cultural minorities, and much else.
 
The visions of Putin and Trump are the same: a world where all restrictions on big states are swept aside, where they can invade anywhere, annex anywhere, have their military do whatever they want to anyone with no repercussions.
 
Putin's invasion unambiguously beached all core principles of the UN Charter in Article 2.4. 

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Putin's aim is unambiguously to use force against both the territorial integrity and political independence of Ukraine, through the biggest war in Europe since World War II.

In the war, Putin's military deliberately is breaking every rule in international law on war. It executes prisoners, executives civilians, deliberately bombs civilians, apartment blocks, and kidnapped children - actions that are not merely illegal but war crimes. That is all deliberate. The thinking is that if Russia succeeds in Ukraine, the whole rules-based international order will be dead-in-the-water as it has been broken completely without negative consequences. Putin will have said, yet again, to the world "fuck your rules!"
 
Seizing land and setting up fake republics, then claiming them as Russian territory is a blatant breach of Ukraine's "territorial integrity" and the UN Charter, and intended to be. That is why the international community has universally refused to recognise Crimea as Russian territory and why legally it remains, and will remain, Ukrainian territory. Even China, no fan of international law, refused to recognise Occupied Crimea as part of Russia. (Territories illegally occupied by a state in breach of the "territorial integrity" and "Political Independence" rules are known as "Occupied Territories" - for example, the "Occupied Territories" held by Israel but not owned by it in international law.)
 
Trump, to the disgust of the international community, of course wants to recognise Crimea as Russian. It is his way of also helping bring down international law - something he despises. He is also trying to collapse the International Criminal Court for enforcing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide laws on Israel. He has made it clear he wants the US military to be free to commit war crimes without danger of prosecution. It is why he wants to recognise the "Occupied Territories" in Palestine as part of Israel - as another way to give the finger to international law.
 
Irish people who say "what has the Ukraine War got to Ireland?" don't get it at all. It has everything to do with Ireland and all small countries. Their status is explicitly protected by international law. If Putin and Trump get their way, those protections would collapse as would all protections. It would return to the horror days of "might is right" where big countries could do whatever they wanted, as all protections built up over one hundred years, and indeed right back to the Treaty of Westphalia, would be swept aside.
 
If Russia was to succeed in capturing and annexing Ukraine (Putin's aim is to capture Ukraine, sweep aside its democratic institutions, impose pro-Russian puppet, Viktor Yanukovych, who had been driven from the presidency by a popular revolution and fled to Russia, and then have Yanukovych in Ukraine's name apply for Ukraine to join Russia), it would mean that it was open season on all other countries for invasion and annexation as the protections in international law for small states have been swept aside and dead-in-the-water.

Russia would then feel free to invade Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, or any other country in Europe. Georgia and Azerbaijan are on the menu. Trump's America is free to seize and annex Greenland, or any other country or territory. China can invade any of its neighbours.
 
In Africa, large countries would have carte blanche to invade and annex any of their neighbours. The international rules that for one hundred years that have managed, with uneven success rates, to make such invasions and wars relatively rare, and which largely led to the disappearance of annexation post World War II, would be de-facto dead. If Russian could get away with it in Ukraine, then everyone else can too.
 
That is why for Ireland and all small states, Russia's war in Ukraine is potentially existential. The idea that it doesn't matter to Ireland couldn't be more wrong. The rules that protect Ireland's right to exist and territorial integrity, and which do so for small countries all over, are on the line in this war. Putin intends this war to be the battering ram to collapse the rules based order that protects millions but which he despises. He, and Trump, want to sweep away all rules that get in their way. They are using Ukraine to attack those rules. Ukraine and most governments get that. That is why they are so strongly supportive of Ukraine. They realise how crucial the war is for their interests.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Russia's Existential Threat To Small States

Jim Duffy ✍ The trouble often with world wars is that often people don't know if they are in one until after the event. 

Historians still debate whether World War I really started in 1914. Many argue that it started in 1912 when the Balkan League declared war on, and defeated, the Ottoman Empire in the first of two Balkan wars between 1912 and 1914, with those wars setting the scene for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.

The idea that it started in 1914 is very much a western European and American perspective as they weren't in any conflict before 1914 or later in the case of the US.
 


 
Similarly with World War II, did it start in September 1939, March 1939 or in 1938? Some even say earlier. Some date it to the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. Some date it to the annexation of Austria. Western Europe dates it to September 1939 and Nazi-Russian invasion of Poland, as that is what involved the west in a war.
 
If one asked many people even in August 1914 were they in a world war they would say "no. Of course not!" Then again, was World War I even the first world war? Arguably there were wars earlier that could be called world wars as they involved people on multiple continents through European empires.
There is general though reluctant agreement that Putin is determined to start a full war, and that his hybrid war is a form of war just marginally below the legal threshold but which at any time could step over that threshold. Had the attempt by Russia to cause the plane of the President of the European Commission to crash in Bulgaria succeeded we would be in a full war now. That would legally be a casus belli.
 
The hybrid war is targeting every country in Europe, neutrals and NATO alike. Ireland has been targeted at least once, while Russian spy ships have been gathering data on underwater cables and interconnectors on critical infrastructure Ireland depends on and which could cause chaos in Ireland (causing long-term power-cuts, shutting down businesses and banks, etc). Try running Ireland when it loses 50%+ of its electricity generation ability at a time when it can barely generate enough electricity!!!
 
Every neutral bar tiny geographically irrelevant Malta has been targeted in hybrid attacks. Ireland has. Switzerland has. Austria has. Cyprus has. Add to that Russia's attempts to plant incendiaries on planes flying from Europe to North America, with quick timers which suggest they wanted the planes to crash either in the Benelux Countries, Britain or Ireland. They were timed to ignite while over land, not the Atlantic. Russian state-run TV gloated over a piece on it by a long-time Putin mouthpiece on Ukraine threatening to let off a nuclear bomb off the coast of Donegal to destroy Ireland.
 
The Taoiseach said that the Irish population was "blissfully unaware" of the threat to Ireland, and drunk on neutrality delusions. It is. So are some of his ministers. Thankfully the Minister for Defence isn't.
Most countries now believe Putin is so intent on causing a war that it is unavoidable, just as Hitler was so intent on causing one that it was unavoidable though Chamberlain desperately tried to avoid it until he realised it was impossible to. Denmark, hardly a warlike nation, predicts a war within three to five years. Germany predicts possibly as soon as eighteen months. Putin's behaviour is so explicit and aggressive that it seems he is determined to cause one, though it is the last thing other countries want.
France and Germany have both ordered major upgrading of their health service to be ready to deal with thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of injured people. It is the last thing they want, but given Putin's behaviour (including massing large numbers of troops on the Finnish border) they realised it would be reckless not to prepare their health services.
 
They hope it doesn't happen, but suspect it is going to, and as history shows, no matter how much a country tries to avoid a war, it becomes unavoidable if a bad actor is intent on causing one that engulfs them. You can say all you want that you don't want one, but it becomes unavoidable when your state is attacked directly or indirectly or you know it is about to be.
 
Ukraine signed the Bucharest Memorandum to avoid war, giving its nuclear weapons to Russia and agreeing to put neutrality in its constitution. Putin broke it and every other deal. They quickly realised neutrality means nothing to Putin except that he considers you an easy target. He invaded Ukraine, forcing it to try to join NATO for protection. When Merkel blocked it that left Ukraine a sitting duck for Putin and he invaded a second time in 2022 and has to fight to preserve its independence.
 
So, no matter how much you don't want war, a bad actor determined to cause one will, and drag you in. Putin has made explicit threats to Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova and a host of other countries. When he questioned Finland's right to be independent after a century of independence, Finland, like Sweden, once they see him attack Ukraine a second time concluded neutrality is dead and they needed to join NATO. Cyprus also wants to join NATO, but its enemy Turkey is blocking it.
 
The likelihood, tragically, is that a war is highly likely. As in the past, often countries may not know they are in a major war, or even a world war, until it has started and they are in it. Historians will then look to see could the attack on Ukraine in 2022 be regarded as the beginning of the war.
 
The best advice on how to avoid war remains the 4th or 5th century AD 'Si vis pacem, para bellum' by Publius (or Flavius) Vegetius Renatus, known as Vegetius. It means "If you want peace, prepare for war." In other words, be sufficiently well armed and protected that your enemy will not dare attack you. In modern parlance it is 'peace through strength'. That is why NATO members and neutrals are all significantly increasing defence spending - as a deterrent. Austria has raised its defence spend to 1% of GDP. Switzerland will reach that in 2030. Cyprus is at 1.8%. Ireland, naturally is at 0.24% of GDP, or 0.4% of GNI.
 
Either number is damning. It is also damning that after a century of independence Ireland still has to rely on Britain to do its basic air and sea defences for it. A core duty of every state is to be able to protect its air, sea and land. Yet independent Ireland has flunked it.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Hybrid War

Sunday Times 📰 Written by John Mooney. Recommended by Carrie Twomey. 

The Irish military and security ­services have identified a politician in the Oireachtas who has been recruited by Russian intelligence as an agent of influence and whose clandestine connections to Moscow remain intact, The Sunday Times can reveal.

The existence of the agent, whom we are calling “Cobalt” for legal reasons, is one of the state’s most closely guarded secrets. The situation is known only to a handful of people in the country.

Sergey Prokopiev, a Russian spy, worked as a counsellor at his ­country’s embassy in Orwell Road, Dublin, from 2019 to 2022. He was in charge of the intelligence operation that recruited the politician, who operates as an agent of influence inside parliament.

Prokopiev was among four Russian diplomats who were declared personae non gratae by the Department of Foreign Affairs two years ago for being undeclared intelligence officers. At the same time 600 of Moscow’s diplomats were expelled from embassies across the West as a response to Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine.

The alarm was raised after Cobalt and Prokopiev met outside Dublin. Their conversation was monitored.

Continue reading @ Sunday Times.

Revealed ⍟ Putin Has An Agent In The Oireachtas

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