So this story came up via Business Insider....there's this retired Foreign Minister for the Russians (Andrey Kozyrev, a Yeltsin guy from the 1990s), who says there's one key judgement problem brewing under Putin.
He says (BS-meter is a '5')....Putin believed for the past 20 years that modernization money.....into the hundreds of billions was flowing to the Russian military.
Well...the guy says that a fair portion of it....instead went to corruption....floating out for personal palaces and mega-yachts. Proof? None really, but if you did some accounting...it wouldn't take much to show a quarter-billion dollars here and there....each month for twelve month would make sense, and explain how how the old equipment is showing up in this invasion force.....with conscripts a major part of the story.
If Putin figures this out? This invites a distribution of 'pain'....where you assess the hundred-odd people who caused you this embarrassment and just kill them (yeah, kinda like what Mr. Kim would do in North Korea).
But adding to this.....most all of the yachts were built in the 'western' part of Europe....so it flowed from the Russian military budget....over to some German, Brit, or Dutch shipyard. Kinda funny, if you think about how it was supposed to be used.
True? Well.....I would speculate in another week, this rumor will get around to Putin, and all hell will break loose with a several dozen Oligarch guys who just disappear into the landscape....hoping not to be caught by Putin's thugs.
At that point? You can assess Putin standing there with a military force that is way under-powered, and definitely not able to handle NATO, and they might not be able to gain a clear victory in the Ukraine. Massive frustration? Oh, I'd say he'll go ballistic.
The question to ask.....how many people knew of this massive corruption factor, and would that basically explain how the mega-yacht club grew to the size that it is today? Literally thousands who were in on the knowledge and just kept their mouth shut?
The war at this point? Man, it's screwed up with no way out.
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