Bill’s story is one of the most fascinating we’ve ever heard.
A Brit born and raised in America to a Communist family, Bill moved to Russia as a young man and a ferocious capitalist.
”When I grew my hair long, that didn’t upset my family. When I followed the [jam band] Grateful Dead around the country, that didn’t upset my family. When I put on a suit and tie, that p*ssed them off good and proper.”
Specialising in Russian markets, Bill is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management and investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund which, in 1997, ranked as the best-performing investment fund in the world.
In 2005, in retaliation to his challenging of several large Russian corporations, Bill was refused entry to the country, deported to the UK, and declared a national threat.
Two years later, the firm’s Moscow offices were raided, and the man Bill assigned to investigate the raid’s cause - Sergei Magnitsky - was arrested, held without trial, before falling ill (a result of his mistreatment) and ultimately dying in custody.
After Magnitsky's death, Browder became devoted to political activism, lobbying for Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, a law to punish Russian human rights violators. In 2012, it was signed into law by President Obama.
Bill has remained a steadfast enemy of the Kremlin ever since.
Why did we invite him on?
Bill’s unique experience with Russia has gifted him a unique insight. He’s seen the best and the worst the country can offer an individual, and hence possesses an intimate, unorthodox understanding of its quirks, curios, and dangerous components.
That extends to his assessment of their war with Ukraine.
To most in the West, Putin’s intentions are clear - to revive Russia’s dimmed glory by knocking back what he sees as European encroachment. It’s his attempt to assert himself as a once-in-a-century political figure, a Peter The Great-style figure for the 21st century.
Bill disagrees: Putin’s war in Ukraine is not a man-of-history story; it’s a cover-up.
Of what?
That’s what we wanted to find out.
What did we learn?
”When Putin came into power, he wasn’t a monster. He was a technocrat cracking down on the oligarchs. I was one of the people supporting him! When he got [former wealthiest man in Russia] Khodorkovsky, I thought ‘One down, twenty-one to go.’”
It’s remarkable to hear, given everything that would soon happen to him and his associates, how warmly Bill once felt about the Russian dictator. Initially, he seemed like the remedy for Russian corruption. It’s almost funny to think of that now.
Putin’s supposed crack-down on oligarchs turned out to be, unsurprisingly, self-serving. The only way they’d be allowed to continue to operate in Russia would be if they gifted 50% of their earnings to the President. Not the Presidential account, not the Kremlin - Putin himself.
This was the beginning of the autocrat’s shady efforts to enrich himself through his office.
”He stole too much. He’s been a crook since the beginning. Nobody goes into public service to serve the public. If you’re a traffic cop, it’s to extract bribes. If you want to be a building surveyor, you do it to extract bribes. The bribes just get bigger. Putin stole an exorbitant amount of money. More than you can imagine.”
Try us.
”Over the course of 22 years, up to the start of the war, Putin and a thousand other people stole over a trillion dollars from the Russian people. Money that should have been spent on roads and schools and electricity was instead spent on private jets and houses in the South of France.”
Eventually, everything comes to light. It’s only a matter of time before these crimes are exposed and, when they are, the people will want his head. This, Bill asserts, is the real motivation for the Ukraine War.
”He stole so much money that he’s afraid of his own people. The best way to have your own people not be mad at you is to invent someone else for them to be mad at. It’s Machiavelli 101: create a foreign enemy and start a war.”
The prospect of a million men storming the Kremlin might sound a little far-fetched. But is it?
