“In Defense of Russia’s Oligarch Wars”

I can’t be emotionally neutral when approaching Vladimir Putin’s war on Russian “oligarchs” since I am often rated as one. Nevertheless, I have the advantage of knowing that policy from inside. As a victim of that “war” I can speak of it in the right terms and I know the repressive power of the government service when it preys upon someone. This would have been unlikely to happen in a Western democracy. It’s inconceivable that France, for instance, gives all of its services (police, law, bureaucracy) the mission to chase an individual. But this is perfectly conceivable to happen in Russia.
Moscow requests my extradition to present me as a criminal by far. Putin’s “war” is not aimed at one special class or doubtfully acquired fortunes, but at people who want a liberal, free and democratic Russia. That benefits the President’s closest ones who want to get rich at any cost. The attacked “oligarchs” are those who better understood the opportunities of the Russian economy and then committed themselves politically, though not all of them fervently as shown by the apologies made by Mihail Khodorkovsky to please the Kremlin.
If Putin wins this war, it will be a pyrrhic victory against the nation’s own richness.