> Sure he’d like Russia to be economically stronger, but his own situation will always be fine so it’s hard to care about a few sanctions.
Mussolini certainly didn't expect to be hanging by his toes either. Stalin didn't expect someone close to him to dose him with warfarin. Hitler didn't expect to be cowering in his bunker, ending with blowing his brains out. Gaddafi didn't expect the rebels to capture and shoot him. Saddam didn't think he'd end up hiding in a rat infested spider hole and then hung by his adversaries. And so on.
that is the reputation Putin goes out of his way trying to build, yet he will forever still be a staffer in St.Petersburg government, like in this photo (which many think is a photoshop, though a one being true to life :)
This is true, but from what I hear this is mostly because he’s preferable than a power struggle between his oligarchs which is what people expect would happen in his absence.
For the record, Deripaska is no friend of Putin, who forced him to start paying tax and stay out of politics.
Look at how Putin humiliated him several years ago during an industrial dispute, when Putin took the side of workers against Deripaska.
> He took a loan of a few million from his father and turned it in to a billion dollar empire.
See the other comment about how he'd have much more money if he'd plowed his inheritance into an index fund. It's been a story that cropped up every few years for the last decade. He's a bad businessman who keeps going bankrupt and borrowing money from greater fools. This last time, it seems he went into debt to the Russians. Maybe Putin is not so foolish.
Honestly, I think he didn't release his tax returns because they'd show he's actually broke and living off borrowed cash.
> always manages to outsmart his opponents?
Right time, right place. I've seen inept people "succeed" so many times, it makes me weep. But hey, no one likes to hear bad beat stories.
I bet that the last Tsar followed the same logic..
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