BillBrowder

I believe that Putin's invasion of the Ukraine was done solely to distract public opinion from his own kleptocracy. Putin's previous experience invading Chechnya got him elected and his current attack is one to keep him in power.

When I first arrived in Moscow in 1996, I felt like the country was in a state of chaos, but I was hopeful that it would become less chaotic and more normal as time went by.

I thought that Russian was in the transition from "horrible" to "bad," and then potentially to "good."

However, since Putin's second term, it's gone from "bad" back to "horrible."

There were several different types of privatizations in 1996.

"Loans for shares" privatizations were clearly shady, and I had nothing to do with that. But I was critical.

However, "voucher privatization" was open to anybody & transparent. I wouldn't argue that either of them were good policy, but if you go back and read any of my quotes from the time, you will see that I am entirely consistent on that issue.

As for Litvinenko, why don't we wait and see the results of the inquest in London which is currently going on, which will be far more informative than me speculating on reddit.

In my opinion, Putin governed Russia in the past with 90% bribery, 10% repression. Now that they are running out of money, it's going to flip over to 10% bribery, 90% repression, and I don't believe that his repression apparatus will hold together and therefore it is not sustainable - we just don't know how long it's going to take.

My investments were in the Russian stock market, in "blue chip" Russian companies like GazProm, Lukoil, etc.

Unfortunately I found a lot of corruption in those companies.