Saw the CN headline "Oleg Tinkov fears for his life after criticism of Russian invasion of Ukraine". (I haven't tried the workaround to read CN artlicles and can't remember where it's posted. May sign on to CN to read this.)

Read not long ago "Russia's War", WW2 from the Russian side. It talks of Russia's journey since the start of last century, WW1, Lenin, the Revolution, Stalin, the ebb and flow of risen peasants and the old money/very wealthy in high places in government. (The ebbs were very often accompanied by deaths and disappearances.) Very interesting read. Author makes little judgement as to whether Stalin was good or bad. For example, he points out the millions who died because if his policies, both directly by Stalin's conscious decisions and by his partly-line insistence on the military being run as "the people's army". When he let his generals have their way, some of their tactics were brilliant and very costly to Germany.) Also, through the brutal relocating of workers to the far east, sending ample food to them at the expense of real starvation to the western civilians, Russia could out produce Germany in tanks and weapons. (I wonder but doubt if the US could survive such an attack. Luckily for us we have no common borders with countries more threatening than Mexico and Canada.)

After reading that, it is very clear to me that Oleg really has stuck his head in the noose. The more the US rattles its sword and NATO advances weapons and men, the more Russia is going to tighten up for the big one. Putin will become Stalin at his most ruthless, simply because Russia will only survive another WW if it goes to the extremes it did in WW2. Russia's a poor country with not all that many people. To survive will take everything they have, like WW2. Zero dissent allowed.

I don't like this. But I am coming to terms with the idea that not every person or state is born into a world and land of green pastures and honey. (We weren't either. We moved overseas to that land and removed its inhabitants by genocide. Worked this new-to-us land with labor from yet another continent under a system very different from but just as cruel as Stalin's.)

I've always liked Tinkoff as a character not unlike Ted Turner. Smart business man. Willing to take risks (and from the little I know, willing to be a man about it when things go badly). Says what what needs to be said. Often seen and heard not wearing the "me first" hat.