He is one of several dozen Russian businessmen who died in strange circumstances since 2022. There is a running list here.
These are very rich people. Some were billionaires. Many of them were young and vigorous. And they apparently managed to find no method to avoid being picked off one by one.
The extraordinary helplessness of these people is truly something to observe.
Clarissa's Blog 
Acquisition of great wealth always requires relationships. Whether they’re shady, corrupt relationships with criminal states, or productive working relationships with innovative colleagues and good customers, the wealthy get wealthy via relationships.
Relationships also leave one vulnerable. Especially if (as is the case for most wealthy Russians) your relationships are with shady, corrupt entities tied to the Russian state. Inevitably, the security around these wealthy Russians will consist of people who are loyal to the Russian state, or at least people whose family and and friends are vulnerable to the Russian state. Which means their security will acquiesce when an FSB employee needs access to their dwelling.
The only way around this would be to surround themselves with security personnel whose ties are all in the West. But that wouldn’t just mean moving to NYC and hiring private contractors from a Western firm. It would mean cutting off all ties to family and friends in Russia, so that no Russian gets close to them or their kitchen or their medicine cabinet. It would mean living and playing by the rules of Western security services who might not approve of everything they have done to acquire and keep and use that wealth, and might want information on the people they used to work with.
If they don’t play ball with Western security services, well, they probably won’t get heart attacks but they might discover that their transactions face a whole new level of scrutiny, and any word they utter around an electronic device is known to people who shouldn’t have known it. Not stuff that you or I would have to worry about in the West, but we aren’t playing the games of high-level power.
So I get why they don’t leave. That’s a lot of relationships to shed. People find that hard. Most of it is pathetic, and some of it is a tiny bit admirable, but all of it is difficult.
And, frankly, if they did something to piss off Putin, well, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily great people, but maybe, just maybe, some tiny part of them was actually a bit more independent then we thought they could be. Just, sadly, not independent enough to leave.
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I didn’t mean they should leave, though. I meant that all these people with their pots of money and their many strong relationships could have made it so that they could live without fear in their own country. Who is supposed to make Russia less of a hellhole? Whose job is it? If all these Forbes list folks can change nothing, then things must be completely doomed.
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I don’t think anything can make Russia less of a hellhole as long as Russia’s leader kills anyone who in any way inconveniences him. They could arrange for Putin’s death, but (1) that’s very, very dangerous and (2) it’s not like nobody’s ever tried to solve a Russian political problem by killing a leader. It doesn’t necessarily improve things.
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” as long as Russia’s leader kills anyone who in any way inconveniences him”
Class rookie mistake…. it’s not despotism flowing from top to bottom preventing everyday russians from experiencing freedom and happiness, it’s despotism that runs from the bottom up that determines the kind of government they have.
Ukrainian leaders was pretty craptacular too, then they got a taste of what it’s like to push around a government in 2004 and they liked it (and then dropped the ball… these processes are never non-stop) and then stood up to them in 2013 and things have never been (or will be) the same again.
putain (as I like to call him) is not a leader, he’s a follower and that’s true of all levels of russian society. The government only does what the people allow and russians allow (if not demand) leaders who are total psychotic bastards.
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“then they got a taste”
That ‘they’ means ‘everyday Ukrainians’ not the government.
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Exactly! Putin is weak and pathetic. But these losers are even more so. This is a society of losers. Nothing can help them because they won’t help themselves.
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“This is a society of losers”
What I’ve noticed from those posting in English… and some other sources is that many of them seem to live vicariously through government repression and russian military aggression, presumably imagining themselves as repressors or military stategists.
If the government doesn’t provide them with enough proxy thrills of killing people who don’t know their place and invading and/or destabilizaing other countries they get restless and cranky.
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Well, aside from everything else we rolled out the #clotshot and added SADS to SIDs.
Lotta folks reaching out to Dr. Billy Ocean these days.
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