Why China’s e-yuan is a shield against Western sanctions
PRIGOZHIN
People keep asking me what I think about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death, but I don’t really feel like I have anything to say except that it heralds nothing good. An autocracy where leading insiders are killed in horrible ways is neither stable nor predictable, and that is the worst kind of autocracy. That Vladimir Putin felt the need to kill Prigozhin so grotesquely suggests that Putin is increasingly nervous and twitchy.
It feels like a long time ago, but the Russian president used to have a reputation among Westerners as a preternaturally gifted three-dimensional chess player; a master strategist who saw around corners. It was an impression that I never held, having seen Putin being unimpressive in person too many times. But now to everyone he must seem like a toddler hitting the chessboard with a mallet.
Many oligarchs will currently be feeling the kind of nerves that Roman patricians will have felt during the reigns of the more depraved emperors. Putin will be hoping that the assassination of Prigozhin will keep them all in line. There is, though, perhaps a small silver lining hidden within that comparison. Unlike first-century Rome, 21st-century Moscow is not a global center of civilization, wealth or culture. Several other places could provide just as attractive a home to those oligarchs should they decide to leave.