Kremlin foe Bill Browder tells West: Russian money is Putin's Achilles heel
JUNE 15, 2018 / 1:06 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Guy Faulconbridge, Lucy Fielder
LONDON (Reuters) - Once the biggest foreign money manager in Russia, Bill Browder has some advice for the West: If you want to counter Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, then go after Russian money and Russian oligarchs.
Browder, the British 54-year-old head of investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, leads a campaign to expose corruption and punish Russian officials he blames for the 2009 death of Sergei Magnitsky who he employed as a lawyer.
To American-born Browder, who made millions in Russian markets, the West is playing a poor game against Russia, which he casts as corrupt and ultimately weak by comparison.
“With an incredibly bad hand, Putin is bluffing the hell out of the West,” Browder told Reuters at his offices in London. “If this is a poker analogy: Putin has a pair of twos, we have a full house and we are folding our cards.”
The United States has a $20 trillion economy and the combined might of the G7 is nearly $40 trillion while Russia’s economy is worth about $1.7 trillion, smaller than Italy’s.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-sanctions-browder/kremlin-foe-bill-browder-tells-west-russian-money-is-putins-achilles-heel-idUSKBN1JB0E7
