Drawing Putin Into War
The Gist
00:00
Putin and the Oligarchs
At the height of the Yeltsin era there is no doubt that well-connected people who had figured out how to take advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union came into massive fortunes. When Putin came into office he really early on laid down a new reality to those people and said basically get yourselves out of politics. Over time you saw a group of people muscle in on the territory that these people from the 1990s had carved out. They all benefit from being issued licenses by him to control assets or to make money and to enjoy the good life it's absolutely flipped around.
Play episode from 17:20
Transcript
