, Columnist
In Putin’s Russia, Oligarchs Don’t Matter as Much as They Used To
The one exception is Rosneft’s Igor Sechin, and the best way to wage economic warfare is to target his company.
Putin and friend, December 2016.
Photographer: Alexey Druzhinin/AFP
More than two decades ago in Moscow, I interviewed an oligarch who said that guys like him were passé. His name was Vladimir Potanin, and he had amassed a fortune from a failed banking business and industrial and mining operations acquired through Kremlin connections. Russia’s economy was then in disarray, and oligarchs were widely seen as looters.
“Everything is going to change,” he told me. “And the role of the oligarchs will be less.”