He was the original oligarch: a talented mathematician who had used his smarts and ruthlessness to amass an enormous fortune in the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Eventually, he became one of Russia’s most powerful men, a courtier to former president Boris Yeltsin.
Boris Berezovsky went on to survive assassination attempts and even the wrath of Vladimir Putin, as a result of which he has lived in self-imposed exile for the last 13 years.
But ironically, unlike his protege Alexander Litvinenko who had succumbed to mysterious Polonium poisoning, the Putin regime against which Berezovsky has so forcefully crusaded does not seem to have played any part in his demise.
It came, instead, at the hand of the new generation of oligarch: early reports suggest that Berezovsky took his own life shortly after the failed lawsuit against pro-Putin billionaire Roman Abramovich had left him ruined and broken.
His time may have long gone. But, as the headline on the front page of Russia’s Gazeta.ru exclaims: “Berezovsky has taken many secrets to the grave.”
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
