Putin’s options: an oligarch speaks out
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Economist.
Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Bloor. Today on the show, life in Kyiv as attacks intensify and our week-long journey down Route 66 reaches its destination. But first… Four years of war have vastly changed Russia. As the fighting has come closer to home, the conflict has become everyone's problem.
Russia is facing a growing fuel shortage as Ukraine expands drone strikes on Russian energy sites, including the country's largest... The Russian leader is now facing trouble at home.
Now a sense of nervousness is palpable in Moscow. And discontent is becoming more audible. Russia's elite feel that the country has reached a dead end. One of them, a billionaire industrialist called Andrei Melnichenko, has been thinking about a way to change that. For the past few months, he's spent over 60 hours speaking to our Russia editor, Arkady Ostrovsky. Today, I'm joined by Arkady and our deputy editor, Ed Carr, to discuss the future of Russia and Melnichenko's vision for it. Hi, Ed. Hi, Arkady.
Hi, Rosie. Hi, Rosie.
Ed, let's deal with the nuts and bolts first. Who is Melnichenko and why are we featuring him so prominently in The Economist this week?
Well, he is an oligarch. He is one of, I would say, along with Abramovich, Russia's two most important oligarchs. He's different from many of them in that he didn't acquire his riches and wealth in assets in the 1990s during the chaos. He rather built it up as an industrialist. He's the fertilizer king. He's big in coal, big in steel. But he's also a guy who was forced back to Russia because of personal sanctions and having played by the normal rules of oligarchs, ignoring politics, make as much money as you like. He's now back in Russia. Politics matters to him. Russia matters to him. And he sees Russia heading in a bad direction.
And Arkady, tell us about the time you've spent with him. What's striking about what he says and why should we be listening to him?
Yes, as you say, I spent about 60 hours over the past three months.
Who is Andrey Melnichenko and why is he speaking out about Russia now?
And it started with one meeting in Istanbul. It was not supposed to be part of an interview. And he said something to me which made me sit up. He said, for the first time in my life, I feel Russia is my country. I've come back. To him, it's now the only country he's going to have. This is the guy, as Ed said, who's lived this global life. I don't think it's just sanctions. I think the whole kind of order of his life has fallen apart. His factories are getting attacked by Ukrainian drones. He's also facing attacks, not just from Western sanctions, but from some rapacious Russian security services who want to take parts of it. And the fact that this guy is starting to speak is actually the most striking part of it, not just what he is saying.
He's not an anti-Putin figure. He's not an opposition figure. He's not an anti-war figure. His plants have supplied ammonia that's gone into explosives for the war. He's not a rebel. That's the wrong way to think of this. This is a man who was able to forget about his homeland. He was a global citizen. He's now back in Russia. And what happens in Russia affects him directly. And so he feels he's got to do something about it.
We all know how dangerous it is to speak out if you're inside Russia. So something big has changed here. What's changed within Russia?
Well, my view is that what's changed is that the Ukrainian deep campaign has started to affect mass feeling in Russia. For most of the war, Russians have just kind of shut it out of their minds. They haven't want to think about the war. Well, the deep strikes are affecting ordinary life, most directly through fuel shortages, big queues. We've seen videos of bus stops and fistfights at petrol stations. At the same time, Crimea, a big success for Putin when he annexed it in 2014, is now isolated again. Bloggers have started to speak out. There's just a feeling that the stalemate is becoming a real problem. The war seems futile and unending, and that is producing discontent. Now, Putin has to respond to that, and I think Milonchenko is worried that he responds to it by escalating and repressing, and that's something he's desperate to avoid.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:03–2:48
2
Who is Andrey Melnichenko and why is he speaking out about Russia now?
2:48–11:36
3
How did Arkady Ostrovsky build trust during 60 hours of interviews with Melnichenko?
11:36–13:56
4
What practical risks do oligarchs like Melnichenko face inside Russia today?
13:56–19:35
5
How are Ukraine’s deep-strike drone campaigns changing public sentiment in Russia?
19:35–24:54