The Rest Is Politics: Leading 173. The man Putin can’t silence: Bill Browder and sanctioning Russia
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Feb 2, 2026 
Bill Browder, financier turned campaigner who founded Hermitage Capital and led the global Magnitsky sanctions drive. He recounts how confronting Russian corruption led to deportation, the theft of his firms and the death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. He discusses building international sanctions, dodging Russian legal attacks, and how stolen Russian wealth reshaped geopolitics.
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From $2,000 To A Billion-Dollar Fund
- Browder describes profiting from early post-Soviet privatizations by buying assets at extreme discounts and repeating prior wins from Poland.
- He built Hermitage Capital into a billion-dollar fund by exploiting mispriced Russian assets in the 1990s and early 2000s.
How Dirty Money Took Root In London
- Browder criticizes Britain's eager embrace of Russian oligarch money across parties and institutions in the 2000s.
- He says this created blind spots that allowed corrupt wealth to entrench itself in UK politics, law firms, and culture.
Why Putin Initially Helped Clamp Down
- Early on Putin cooperated with exposes of oligarch corruption because he was fighting the same powerful oligarchs.
- Browder initially profited as Putin temporarily clamped down on oligarchs before consolidating power himself.
