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Putin Means Money

Nov 22, 2019 Nina L. Khrushcheva

While Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to be able to tout Russian achievements in science and innovation, he also wants to enrich himself as much as possible. And, as the security forces' recent raid on the Lebedev Physics Institute in Moscow showed, if he has to choose, money comes first.

MOSCOW – In her 2014 book Putin’s Kleptocracy, the late Karen Dawisha argued that the key to understanding Vladimir Putin’s Russia is money. While Putin was selling stories to the public about restoring Russia’s global influence, she explained, he and a coterie of trusted cronies were amassing massive amounts of personal wealth. More than an authoritarian, nationalist, or revanchist, Putin, in her view, should be understood as a crook.

At the time, I disagreed: though money was undoubtedly important to understanding the Putin regime, the drive for global influence was not to be dismissed. But in the wake of the security forces’ raid on the Lebedev Physics Institute (FIAN) in Moscow last month, I have changed my mind.

For decades, FIAN has been at the frontier of Russian scientific and technological progress. It would thus seem that the institute is ideally suited to play a central role in advancing the strategic priorities that Putin himself identified in May 2018: science, technological innovation, and export-oriented production.

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Alexey Tuzikov Dec 20, 2019

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j. von Hettlingen Nov 26, 2019

Nina L. Khrushcheva explains why many were shocked when the renowned Lebedev Physics Institute (FIAN) in Moscow was raided end of October by 30 security officers wearing masks and armed with automatic weapons, leaving kremlinologists baffled. FIAN helped the Soviet Union detonate its first nuclear bomb, figured out how to build a hydrogen bomb and has stood for decades in the vanguard of Russian scientific achievement. Four of its scientists had won Nobel Prizes.
The operation took place shortly before the celebrations marking the 85th anniversary of the illustrious institute’s founding, and prompted outrage and questions about over-the-top actions by the country’s increasingly aggressive security forces. They carried out simultaneous raids on scientists and their family members. And they searched the office of the institute’s director, Nikolai N. Kolachevsky, and detained him for six hours.
He was questioned about a supposed plan by the company Trioptics, whose owner, Olga Kanorskaya, the daughter of a Lebedev scientist, has rented an office at FIAN to build up a small business selling precision glassware. “Because the window has applications in space or military activities, the authorities claim, exporting it could undermine national security.” There was a theory that a business rival, jealous of her company’s sale to Germany, bribed the security services to knock her out.
The author says Putin “wants to be able to tout Russian achievements in science and innovation, he also wants to enrich himself as much as possible……. if he has to choose, money comes first.” For years he has called on scientists to use their world-class talents to help build a modern economy, away from oil and gas. Kremlin had announced a special programme last year to make scientific research more attractive and rewarding, particularly for young talent that might otherwise emigrate.
Regarding FIAN, “Putin’s financial interests seem to be linked to his daughter, Katerina Tikhonova, who directs Innopraktika, a scientific institute that receives state money,” due to its link to Moscow State University.
Another speculation is that the raids could have been related to last week’s elections at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN) and a bitter rivalry between the Lebedev Physics Institute and the Kurchatov Institute, a nuclear research centre. Kurchatov is headed by Mikhail V. Kovalchuk, whose brother, Yuri V. Kovalchuk, is a banker in St. Petersburg and an old friend and crony of Putin. The Kremlin tried to make Mikhail president of RAN in 2017, in vain.
The far more distinguished physicist Alexander Sergeev won the election. However he refused to toe the government line and was joined by the well-regarded Alexei Khokhlov. Now RAN “continued to push back against the Kremlin’s agenda,” which Putin’s cronies see as highly “unacceptable.” There is also fear that Khokhlov might become the new director of Moscow State University, and he might not be “supportive” of the first daughter and her institute, which is also involved in construction projects, tied to Federal Security Service (FSB) – the KGB’s successor organisation.
The author refers to Karen Dawisha’s 2014 book, “Putin’s Kleptocracy – Who Owns Russia?” that highlights a “kleptocratic tribute system.” The outstanding scholar of Russia argued that Putin had turned Russia into a corrupt authoritarian state run by a bunch of KGB cronies – the so-called siloviki, or strongmen. Grabbing and consolidating power, they have become among the richest people on the planet.
“In Putin’s Russia, physics belongs to spies, history is written by Chekists, and geography by soldiers,” according to a journalist. Indeed, Sergei Naryshkin, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, is also president of the Russian Historical Society, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu leads the Russian Geographical Society.
A week after the raids Putin lauded the FSB for its growing role in “Russia’s integrated security.” If harassing and humiliating scientists make him feel proud, he should think what made the Soviet Union great: “Whatever you say about the Soviet Union, knowledge mattered. Today’s Russia, despite its claims to be a ‘great country,’ resembles a small former colony, where every general in power wants to call himself a doctor of philosophy, just to increase his profits,” a retired academic said.
No matter what the eventual outcome of the investigation, the Lebedev institute complained in a tart statement that the raids had “delivered colossal reputational damage with law enforcement organs discrediting themselves in the eyes of the scientific community.”
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Elizabeth Pula Nov 25, 2019

The picture that is the headline picture to the article of the attached hyperlink reflects EXACTLY to depict in the real world what people who mean money leave as a reminder of what they are doing in the real world to every one else.

https://nypost.com/2019/11/23/construction-worker-injured-in-new-orleans-hard-rock-hotel-collapse-faces-deportation/

If anybody is so inclined as to want any further explanation of the meaning of the hyperlink, for me to use text, to explain the full context of my meaning, I can easily perform that function rather quickly, not immediately and instantaneously, although I wish I could.
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Elizabeth Pula Nov 25, 2019

After translating that little link from the Russian into English about his dissertation, he shows his true colors, out of the mirage. Just how much money gets skimmed by the enrichers? It looks pretty rosy for them, and pretty black for practically everyone else. Crooks are kinda like rooks on a chess board. They can hop around all over the place.

Example:

This little rook: about what happened to UBER in Russia, and what is happening in London today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber

When it hopped over to Russia, via China, it jumped up to $3 billion. Don't know who got the best parts of the rabbit stew, did he, or some of the other guys at the dinner table from China, or somewhere a whole lot hotter?

These guys are taking a lot of people NOT along for any ride. They just keep cruising.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/13/15963754/uber-yandex-merger-russia

These types of companies are NOT just disruptors, the platforms are based on theft from all participatory actors and activities. The only ones who really are rewarded by the business model is primarily the CEO, and the leading private investments funds, and really only the initial private investors of private multi-national llc's. The state doesn't get any opportunity for any cut from the action, or any take.

These companies are invading all functioning of people, and business activities to eliminate any opportunities for any revenues within the foreign states that they operate in. This is internal destruction attacking the internal supply chain and transportation of the nations. This is internal warfare, by outside agencies of the foreign state that receives the most significant and immediate rewards during the processes of operation.

Presently, at least people in London, made an extremely critical decision by supporting the critical disapproval of licensing of Uber. The state, on its many levels of operations, secures its own existence and right to continue only by actually sustaining revenues for itself and its people. Uber is not above the state in England, US, and Russia etc.......It is trying to be, and very strategically. It is not a little bunny rabbit hoping around town, it is worse than a sly-fox, in the hen house. Some people just open the gate for a next round.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/25/uber-loses-licence-london-tfl
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Elizabeth Pula Nov 22, 2019

That link to the commentary about Putin's dissertation plagiarism is very interesting. Google translate really works great. Now, if Google could just really work out, that might create more form improvement for everyone else.
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https://prosyn.org/SRBcRt1

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