Panic among Moscow’s Elite As Putin Moves to Seize Tycoon’s Empire

a year ago by ByteOnBikes to c/world

Vladimir Putin’s government has launched an aggressive campaign to nationalize the assets of Konstantin Strukov, one of Russia’s richest men and the owner of the country’s largest gold mining company. The move marks a sharp escalation in the Kremlin’s efforts to extract wealth from within its own elite as the financial toll of the war in Ukraine deepens.

Strukov, whose fortune is estimated at over $3.5 billion, is the founder of Yuzhuralzoloto—a gold empire built over decades with strong ties to the Kremlin. But on July 5, his private jet was grounded by Russian authorities as it prepared to leave for Turkey. His passport was reportedly seized, and the aircraft barred from departing.

bytesonbike 217 points a year ago

Billionaires siding with dictators thinking they'll be protected?

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pelespirit 127 points a year ago

It's funny to me that they think they'll be special, every single time. "They won't throw me out the window for my fortune!"

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Nougat 53 points a year ago

Leopards Throwing Out Of Windows Party

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ChicoSuave 7 points a year ago

Window Inspectors Against Workplace Safety party

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Tollana1234567 2 points a year ago

defenestration

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Saleh 35 points a year ago

Well, in the case of Nazi Germany it worked spectacularly well. Many of Germanys most rich people are inheritors to industrial fortunes that got unimaginably rich with selling weapons to the Nazi army and using forced labor from the concentration camps. The families Quandt/Klatten (BMW) and Porsche/Piech (Porsche,VW, Audi...) come to mind directly. The Krupps are also still in the game although they have gambled a lot of money away over the past decades

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NewNewAugustEast 12 points a year ago

It is worth mentioning that in the case of krupps they made a lot of money selling arms in WWI and they purchased newspapers to sell the war to increase profits.

Own all the newspapers... Propaganda... Seems familiar.

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anomnom 2 points a year ago

They made a good coffee grinder though. We’re still running our’s from the early 90s.

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boonhet 10 points a year ago

Never ask Mr. Kühne where his family's fortune came from, or what their most popular cargo was in the 40s.

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pelespirit 4 points a year ago

Hitler didn't stay in power long enough to take everything though. (my bad, it was longer than I thought). Also, they probably toed the line and didn't piss him off so they could make lots of money. They weren't special either.

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dangling_cat 26 points a year ago

Nah. They all play this game; they all know the risk. It’s all about gaining leverage and the correct alignment at the right time.

He probably knows it’s happening and sacrifices himself for his family and assets.

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atzanteol 20 points a year ago

Usually they are. Dictators typically gain and keep power by appeasing the wealthy and powerful.

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pelespirit 14 points a year ago

Not keep power, just to get it. Then they dump them once they've got it. See Giuliani, Musk, My Pillow guy, Herman Cain, etc.

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atzanteol 6 points a year ago

I mean... No - to keep it. "No man rules alone." They need key supporters. However simply "being rich" is not enough.

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Danquebec 1 point a year ago

I believe Putin is between a rock and a hard place and has to take risks. There could be a coup from this. Perhaps more decentralization of force as rich people look to protect their assets and hire private mercenaries or buy the loyalty of military officers.

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mgnome 12 points a year ago

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Tollana1234567 4 points a year ago

russian oligarchs are only useful as a personal piggy bank for putin, he distributes the wealth around and then siezes it back down the line.

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gravitas_deficiency 2 points a year ago

I genuinely cannot wait until Thiel gets his comeuppance, one way or the other.

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HubertManne 149 points a year ago

This is a pretty good example of why I say even millinoaires and billionaires should support a functional democractic society with taxation and regulation and social safety nets. Its the old penny wise and pound foolish. Getting a sliver more and a sliver more and then you lose it all because the rule of law was thrown out long ago. It won't necessarily take that long to. At a certain point it could happen at any time. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.

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SoftestSapphic 67 points a year ago

This all depends on the people born into wealth being reasonable people.

Most are unhinged psychopaths or nepo babies with too much ego.

Which is why wealth needs to be forcefully redistributed, they won't do it voluntarily.

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Triasha 14 points a year ago

Wealth is actually being redistributed quite a bit in Russia right now. The oligarchs are paying for the war and "the people" are getting much higher wages either in the military or because of labor shortages.

It's not great, what with all the death and destruction. But Russians gini coefficient is going down fast.

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burgerpocalyse 32 points a year ago

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Tiger666 -4 points a year ago

A functional society doesn't need money.

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Olhonestjim -2 points a year ago

Money implies poverty.

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vivalapivo 10 points a year ago

Rich people live under the fear of losing it all. As sharing is synonymous with losing to them, no one wants it and everyone is caught in this loop.

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grrgyle 9 points a year ago

I'm becoming convinced it's an actual mental disease, or at least grossly maladaptive

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vivalapivo 5 points a year ago

It's a mental disease in the same sense as drapetomania used to be

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grrgyle 7 points a year ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that […] hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Americans fleeing captivity.

I could make some guesses, but I'm not sure what you meant by this. What did you mean?

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driving_crooner 7 points a year ago

Or you end being shoot on the street and the entire world celebrates it.

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grrgyle 3 points a year ago

That was a fun day

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avidamoeba 5 points a year ago

Smaller scale millionaires perhaps. Once they go multinational, it becomes very difficult to significantly harm them even if one country decides to dispossess their business. This has already happened to large corporations that exist today through nationalization at various places and points in time. E.g. Shell after Venezuelan oil nationalization.

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calcopiritus 6 points a year ago

A billionaire cannot exist in 2 countries at the same time. It doesn't matter if his company is multinational, he isn't.

If you jail that billionaire, which is not hard as a state if said billionaire resides in your country, you can "convince" him to give even assets in foreign countries.

That's why they removed his passport.

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avidamoeba 3 points a year ago

Right but how do you make most countries want to arrest them? We currently don't have a setup allowing for this if no international criminal offenses are involved. It only happens if the billionaire resides mostly in an "authoritarian" country where they could get "arbitrarily" arrested. The rest of the world isn't currently setup to do this. I'm not saying it can't be setup or shouldn't be setup like that.

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calcopiritus 3 points a year ago

The comment you replied to originally was talking about why billionaires should support a democratic society.

If the society is not democratic, it would be authoritarian. Therefore what I explained could happen.

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MrMakabar 5 points a year ago

That requires rule of law to actually work. Putin is well known to murder problematic oligarchs. Combined with some proper blackmail, that tends to work very well.

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HubertManne 3 points a year ago

Not if its the home nation. Shell was a us company in venezuela but if the same thing happened in the US the owners would be lucky to get out of the country with what they could carry and if they worked fast enough maybe they could have a small fraction of what they used to.

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avidamoeba 2 points a year ago

Yes, of course.

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HailSeitan 3 points a year ago

Hamilton Nolan has made a similar argument

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newthrowaway20 77 points a year ago

The USA elite should take notice. It'll happen to them too. Trump will ruin them if things get between himself and them.

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PalmTreeIsBestTree 29 points a year ago

It’s all ready happening between him and Musk unless that’s all kayfabe

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bytesonbike 13 points a year ago

I'm really excited for Zuckerfuck to get Trump'd. Unlike Musk, he'll do it in the most pathetic way... Raging like a little nerd by writing private temper tantrum emails and everyone in his circle comforts him because he pays them 7-figures.

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jaybone 11 points a year ago

Tbf, musk’s way is also pretty pathetic.

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Olhonestjim 3 points a year ago

Neither of them has the chops to pull off such an act. They're genuinely horrible idiots.

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jaybone 0 points a year ago

You mean covfefe?

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ShadowRam 14 points a year ago

Trump Admin using national security as a pre-tense to take control over X/Twitter away from Musk, and effectively killing it in favour of Truth Social

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jaybone 2 points a year ago

If Trump takes Facebook from Zuck i will lmfao and simultaneously weep for humanity.

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eldavi -6 points a year ago

it's so much better when you take from the rich, rather than taking from the poor like we do in the united states.

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NOT_RICK 35 points a year ago

They take from the poor in Russia too though. The rich aren’t the ones being fed into the meat grinder in Ukraine.

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Tollana1234567 3 points a year ago

specifically the poors of ethnic russians, not the white ones from moscow and st petersberg.

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eldavi -21 points a year ago

the difference is that the united states ONLY takes from the poor, while the russians take from both rich AND poor.

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TheTimeKnife 21 points a year ago

Call me crazy, but people might take ML users stand against fascism more seriously if they did literally anything with it besides just rooting for a different Imperial kleptocracy built on violence.

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Eldritch 12 points a year ago

Trust me the US will start taking from wealthy Americans as well soon enough. Once authoritarian groups burn enough Bridges and goodwill. They always have to scapegoat another group.

It's pretty hilarious how so many people think that the boot isn't the problem. The flavor of it is all that matters.

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Buelldozer 12 points a year ago

the difference is that the united states ONLY takes from the poor

Objectively and provably untrue.

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Tollana1234567 1 point a year ago

putin is a trillionaire just reclaiming his ill gotten gains from his oligarchs.

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ddplf 62 points a year ago

It's funny because $3.5bln is nothing when trying to cover the war effort, but it'll spark a massive distrust in the Kremlin's inner circle, which is basically the only group of people that can realistically threaten Putin's very life.

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Diplomjodler3 34 points a year ago

I'm still waiting for these fuckers to finally grow some balls.

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TankovayaDiviziya 20 points a year ago

Nah. Russia will implode itself on its own even without resistance. As if Russia never learned anything that autocratic control over economy never works, because their political culture is too corrupt to function effectively.

Francis Fukuyama, as wrong as he was about the end of history, is still correct that dictatorships eventually collapse because they surround themselves with yes men who are too detached from reality. The invasion of Ukraine is the beginning of the end for Putin. It is only a matter of time.

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altkey 15 points a year ago

the beginning of the end for Putin. It is only a matter of time.

With his age, he has all biological means to fuck around and never find out. I believe the legacy talk captures him, but the fact he himself would never meet any pushback makes many of his decisions way easier than if he was 40yo and had another 40+ to his rule. Any other minute of him fucking up foreign countries with a weaponised influence, not to say direct warfare, is a minute too much.

He could've tried to revive the country, and he got an easy start in the 00s, but he chosed to gamble it instead.

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mgnome 5 points a year ago

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Tollana1234567 3 points a year ago

early on the war, and probably now he looked like he was on corticosteroids because of the moon face in many photos, hes probably hiding some health condition,.

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arc99 45 points a year ago

Soon these oligarchs won't even own a window to jump out of

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Tja 6 points a year ago

The government will provide one, they are generous like that.

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Blackmist 2 points a year ago

Our window.

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KMAMURI 2 points a year ago

Tea is cheap.

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some_guy 44 points a year ago

Strukov’s company has denied the incident entirely, stating that he was in Moscow on the day in question and calling the reports “disinformation.” But court documents confirm that a judge had already banned him and his family from leaving the country, and government agencies moved quickly to enforce it.

I will now recommend the Sad Oligarch podcast. Short series on the mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs in the last few years.

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AnarchistArtificer 9 points a year ago

A friend of a friend is the daughter of a Russian oligarch. It was a messy situation in which she was at risk of being drawn into the politics, even though her dad was an asshole who she would've been glad to see defenestrated. I only know the surface level info, but it sounds like a fucked up situation in many ways

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some_guy 3 points a year ago

Hadn't considered people born into the crosshairs like that. Cheers.

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Tollana1234567 2 points a year ago

defenestration podcast.

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some_guy 1 point a year ago

That's the scientific name, yes.

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oppy1984 41 points a year ago

Somebody didn't watch Rules for Rulers, keep your elite happy or they'll come together and turn on you.

Fingers crossed.

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thatKamGuy 24 points a year ago

You remember those old “In Soviet Russia” backwards jokes? It’s like that, but unironically.

Putin has consolidated power to the point that he doesn’t serve at the behest of Russian billionaires; they only exist due to his whims - and they can cease to exist just as quickly.

‘Blowout’ by Rachel Maddow touches on this, it’s an interesting read/listen.

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Nighed 9 points a year ago

They are refering to a YouTube video I think.

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TheEighthDoctor 9 points a year ago

Which references this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/...

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Nighed 5 points a year ago

Huh, til

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avidamoeba 7 points a year ago

Not if you have a loyal, competent police apparatus to round up anyone who dares to step out of line.

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oppy1984 2 points a year ago

Apparently the FSB is the opposite of the army since he's still in power.

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finitebanjo 34 points a year ago

And let this be a lesson to US Billionaires.

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Tryenjer 13 points a year ago

If most of them are as smart and lucid as Musk, they won't learn anything.

US billionaires think they can control Trump, and that's very likely true. The worst is yet to come for these rich guys when someone who can truly reverse the power dynamics and thus rule them with an iron fist, as well as the common people, takes the throne.

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finitebanjo 12 points a year ago

Trump cannot be controlled, everything is purely transactional with him. The moment he gains more from taking businesses by force, thats what he will do.

Trust and deals have no meaning to him. This is a theif without honor.

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JcbAzPx 5 points a year ago

He can be controlled for as long as you have access. He bends to the will of the nearest person like a weed blowing in the wind.

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finitebanjo 2 points a year ago

We should treat him like the threat that he is,an absolute unchecked tyrant.

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MushuChupacabra 34 points a year ago

Conversely, if Putin falls out a window, maybe they can keep their business.

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Diplomjodler3 12 points a year ago

They're scared they'll go down with him. But they'll finally have to accept the fact that they're fucked either way. At this point, getting rid of him is their best chance.

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MushuChupacabra 9 points a year ago

They're scared they'll go down with him. But they'll finally have to accept the fact that they're fucked either way. At this point, getting rid of him is their best chance.

Yup. They're at the point where the consequences of obedience are as bad as defiance.

Best have him fall out a window and see if prospects change.

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Regna 10 points a year ago

Please. There are hundreds ready to take Putins place. Some politically, but hundreds behind the scenes who also have finger puppets ready for ”power” who can step in for both Medvedev and Putin. The rest of the dog kennel (like Lavrov) will keep barking for their masters sake.

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MushuChupacabra 4 points a year ago

Please. There are hundreds ready to take Putins place. Some politically, but hundreds behind the scenes who also have finger puppets ready for ”power” who can step in for both Medvedev and Putin. The rest of the dog kennel (like Lavrov) will keep barking for their masters sake.

It sure sounds like you're advocating staying meek and submissive in the face of Tyranny.

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Regna 6 points a year ago

I guess you didn’t really read. Just pointing out that you need to do more than kill the puppetmaster to replace all those who he either trained or who learned how to thrive in his absence.

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MushuChupacabra 3 points a year ago

I guess you didn’t really read. Just pointing out that you need to do more than kill the puppetmaster to replace all those who he either trained or who learned how to thrive in his absence.

I guess you didn't really understand my comment.

You'd have to be a complete knuckehead to think that the point of killing a Tyrant is to have one of their trainees take over.

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nesc 2 points a year ago

Let them fight lol, also medvedev has zero chances of becoming anything but bootlicker for his new master.

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Tollana1234567 7 points a year ago

putin is paranoid enough not to go any windows, he often only ventures from his PALACES under fsb protection to a room where he has 20m table away from his inner circle.

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Olhonestjim 2 points a year ago

His guilded prison.

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MushuChupacabra 1 point a year ago

Must be nice for him to have absolute guaranteed loyalty from every human that he's required to interact with on a daily basis.

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pawnfuture 33 points a year ago

This is the oligarchy that American technocrats want to recreate at home. Owning things is dependent on being alive. Maybe paying a couple percent extra on taxes is worth it.

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doo 32 points a year ago

What a great way to show the inefficiency of sanctions! /s

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WiseScorpio 24 points a year ago

Strukov is about to suffer the effects of defenestration.

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breecher 9 points a year ago

Only four days since the last Russian oligarch defenestration.

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gandalf_der_12te 2 points a year ago

is the defenestration supposed to be a metaphor for something? i.e., they took too many risks and "leaned out the window too far and fell over" or sth 🤔

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Bravo 1 point a year ago

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iAvicenna 23 points a year ago

That's what you get for siding with fascists. People will never learn.

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JDPoZ 1 point a year ago

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McDropout 21 points a year ago

It’s giving Elon-Trump vibes

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hansolo 19 points a year ago

Ooooh, gringo broligarchs, cast your eyes upon all the fucks left to give, and see that $Trump wallet may also be empty.

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But_my_mom_says_im_cool 18 points a year ago

Just like Ancient Rome. The dictator needs cash so he murders the rich people who aren’t his friends and takes their money

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gandalf_der_12te 14 points a year ago

tax the rich! (slight /s)

what i'm wondering is:

who exactly wanted this war? i.e., i guess it was not a single-person decision. probably a number of oligarchs are behind it because they think they can profit from either the conflict or the outcome of it.

everybody knows that wars are hella expensive. i guess most wars are decided by economic factors, i.e. who can stay solvent longer. what did the oligarchs think would happen to their wealth due to the war?

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ZombiFrancis 2 points a year ago

Putin's power draws from his adversaries and foreign policy. He is very weak domestically, mostly at the behest of the oligarchs that run the entire domestic policy show.

Putin muscling around internally usually has to do with the oligarch's stance on foreign policy or the other oligarchs are wanting to eat one of their own.

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IndustryStandard 14 points a year ago

The billionaires?

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Wazowski 12 points a year ago

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Tollana1234567 2 points a year ago

hes an android, so he is incapable of fear or disgust. also FACEBOOK still promotes right wing/russian propaganda, so hes on good terms with trump.

path: 0 18107778 18117775, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

makingStuffForFun 1 point a year ago

Your comment will probably get removed. So for this sweet moment. I agree.

path: 0 18107778 18111330, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 2

Eldritch 10 points a year ago

It's not a threat to someone's health or life. Simply pointing out that he's a fool to think that similar groups wouldn't turn on him if they wanted to. All gung ho to try and join them. I think the comment is safe.

path: 0 18107778 18111330 18111797, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 1

makingStuffForFun 0 points a year ago

The reddit still echo's in my head. Although not totally safe here, the past trauma is real.

path: 0 18107778 18111330 18111797 18112580, hotness: undefined, score: 0, children: 0

Rentlar 10 points a year ago

If you nationalize your industry, you should be doing it to reform and re-gear it to support your country.

Clearly, Putin here is not interested in making it good for the country, but that his petty war has him cash-strapped and needs to forcibly 'borrow' his billionaire friends' assets.

path: 0 18111823, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 0

skozzii 7 points a year ago

The Putin giveth and the Putin taketh away.

path: 0 18125875, hotness: undefined, score: 7, children: 1

aphonefriend 2 points a year ago

Minus the giveth part.

path: 0 18125875 18128309, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

samus12345 4 points a year ago

Somebody give Trump the idea to do this to Musk.

path: 0 18110290, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1

jaybone 2 points a year ago

I think somebody just did.

path: 0 18110290 18114970, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

jaupsinluggies 4 points a year ago

He'll soon be struck off.

path: 0 18120204, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 1

Scrollone 1 point a year ago

path: 0 18120204 18123614, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0

aceshigh 1 point a year ago

Let’s make a bingo card out of it. What are our options?

path: 0 18128175, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0

JeeBaiChow 1 point a year ago

So when do the oligarchs learn? How much longer do they accept the status quo?

path: 0 18144359, hotness: undefined, score: 1, children: 0

world

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world

@lemmy.world

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A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world

Recommendations

How to spot Misinformation and Propaganda

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/...

Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link

go to feed...