The future of Russia, I have the final say! After eight months of public bidding, Putin was jailed, and Putin was not soft.

199 1 10 On February 26th, the Soviet Union officially disintegrated and split into 15 countries. Russia inherited the main legacy of the Soviet Union, but a large number of foreign debts and dead enterprises made the then leader Yeltsin very anxious. He believes that this kind of reform must be profound, and he should carry out drastic reforms. At this time, Gaidar went his own way and concocted the economic reform of "shock therapy" mode, but as a result, the Russian economy became worse and worse, almost collapsed, and the people lived in dire straits.

However, in the process of privatization in Russia, some people made hundreds of millions of dollars by various means, including illegal means, and realized their dream of getting rich overnight. 1one day in March 1996, Yeltsin suddenly secretly summoned seven financial oligarchs and reached an agreement with them: bankers provided financial support to ensure Yeltsin's re-election, while Yeltsin promised to safeguard the oligarchs' economic rights and interests. Since then, the new term "seven oligarchs" was formally born.

Later, after supporting Yeltsin's successful election as president, the seven oligarchs gained huge benefits. At that time, the entire economic lifeline of Russia, such as oil and natural gas, was under their control. In the national economy, the seven oligarchs have absolute right to speak and exist as monarchs.

The benefits of Yeltsin's promise made the seven oligarchs more deeply realize that there is only one way to make wealth inexhaustible, and that is to bind politics. However, this also needs to meet two characteristics: the bound politics should be controllable and lasting.

Yeltsin is obedient enough to compromise easily. Originally, he was the most favored figure among the seven oligarchs, but after eight years in power, he chose to take the initiative to abdicate and put Putin on the presidency.

199965438+February 3 1, Yeltsin made the biggest political choice in his life: abdicating and personally sending Putin to the political center of Russia. Later, Yeltsin handed over the presidential management power and the "nuclear key" representing the country's top secret strategic nuclear force to Putin, and told Putin: Take care of our Russia.

Russia, which took power from Yeltsin, is riddled with holes, which is undoubtedly a severe test for Putin, who has just taken office with unstable foundation.

First of all, the poor economic situation makes the Russian people live in dire straits. Second, Russia is deeply involved in the Chechen war. Finally, the national economy is dominated by seven oligarchs, which makes it difficult for Russia's economic development to be effective.

In response to these three tests, Putin first sent troops to solve the Chechen war cleanly.

The first Chechen war happened before and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. At that time, the Russian Federation repeatedly insisted on its sovereignty over Chechnya, but it repeatedly showed weakness in concrete actions, and finally Chechnya gained the nature of an independent country in a practical sense.

From 65438 to 0992, Russia's political situation gradually stabilized, and economic recovery became the main problem. At this time, oil export became more important. Therefore, the special geographical location of Chechnya has finally attracted Russia's attention. On the other hand, due to the intervention of the United States and other western countries at that time, the illegal armed activities in Chechnya were supported by western countries. Considering the development at home and abroad,199465438+February, Russian troops sent troops to Chechnya in three ways. Grachev, then Minister of National Defense, once boasted that "Grozny (the capital of Chechnya) can be captured in a few days with only one airborne battalion." But in reality, he was severely slapped. Air strikes have caused a large number of civilian casualties, a large number of infrastructure have been destroyed, and domestic anti-war voices are getting louder and louder. In the end, at the cost of serious casualties, after a year of hard work, the Russian army returned in vain. Since then, although Chechnya has not nominally left the Russian Federation, it enjoys informal independence.

From 65438 to 0999, Chechen militants constantly provoked Russia's bottom line and threatened Russia's national security. The Russian army was tired of coping with it and was deeply involved in the armed conflict with Chechnya. After Putin came to power, he decided to completely solve the armed conflict with Chechnya, and the second Chechen war broke out.

In this campaign, the Russian army learned from the experience and lessons of the first Chechen war, used various tactics to cooperate with the operation, and used air superiority to carry out long-range precision strikes against important enemy military facilities, constantly annihilating the enemy, making Chechnya difficult to parry. 200 1, 1 year1October 22nd, Russian troops completely withdrew from Chechnya and sent about 6,000 to 7,000 troops to stay here for a long time.

The victory of the second Chechen war swept away the gloom of the failure of the first Chechen war, solved the long-term bleeding wound of Russia, and became Putin's bullying battle, winning him a lot of support. In this campaign, Putin fully demonstrated his decisive and biting tough guy image, which is exactly the same as his tough style in domestic economic reform in the future.

After solving the wounds that have plagued Russia for many years, Putin began to focus on domestic economic reform. The pressure of this "economic war" is no less than or even better than the just-concluded Second Chechen War.

At that time, seven oligarchs controlled the lifeblood of Russian economy, and berezovsky even boasted that "I can be a monkey president if I want". Of course, it turns out that this is not a joke. It was because of the support of the seven oligarchs that Yeltsin was re-elected in the election of 1996. It is said that Yeltsin got berezovsky's consent when he pushed Putin to power. In other words, in berezovsky's view, Putin, like Yeltsin, is easily controlled. Either Putin is too low-key to disguise himself, or berezovsky is wrong and mistook the tiger for a sheep.

In order to help Russia develop its economy, Putin once warned the seven oligarchs: don't engage in politics and make money honestly. In other words, as long as the seven oligarchs stop trying to control politics, Putin will let bygones be bygones, otherwise, they will pay for it.

However, Putin's warning did not attract the attention of these oligarchs, and they continued to do evil. Berezovsky even publicly expressed his attitude towards politics:

The collusion between politics and business is an open secret in capitalist countries, but even in western countries such as the United States and Europe, no one has made such a public statement. However, in Russia, oligarchs openly expressed that they would use politics to defend their rights and interests, which was enough to show how arrogant Russian oligarchs were at that time.

In the end, under Putin's strong attack, these oligarchs were either exiled abroad or jailed. In this way, the arrogant "seven oligarchs" became the history of Russia.

As an oligarch who controls the lifeblood of Russia's economy and the public opinion of most domestic news media, why can't he do anything before Putin's iron fist and finally go to extinction?

First of all, this is closely related to Putin's personal political courage and personality charm. Putin won the support of a large number of Russian people during his reign, and he had no handle to be controlled by the seven oligarchs. Therefore, oligarchs are very helpless about Putin's political means.

Secondly, as the president of a country, Putin is the most authoritative commander-in-chief of the state machine and the commander-in-chief of the three armed forces. He holds the Russian national resources, involving the army and administration, which is different from the authority of the presidents of Western European and American countries. Although the seven oligarchs control the lifeline of the national economy and the right to speak in public opinion at the national level, in the face of a powerful state machine, it is tantamount to throwing eggs at stones.

Finally, the seven oligarchs seized the loopholes in the country's economic development and became rich overnight. They did not have a solid foundation, were far less sophisticated and mature than the oligarchs who controlled the whole Wall Street and the huge American military industrial group, and had no political foresight or the ability to cope with sudden changes. They did not take systematic measures. So Putin took the initiative to attack them one by one.

Among the seven oligarchs in Russia, he once put down an extremely arrogant sentence: the future of Russia is my call. If even Putin is afraid to say it, how can he say it?

He used to be the richest man in Russia, with countless personal wealth and almost monopolized the entire Russian oil industry. He stole national resources aboveboard and regulated prices at will, thus threatening the government and people. Even in the face of Putin, he is still arrogant and embarrassed Putin in public. He is the head of the seven oligarchs-Khodorkovsky.

From 65438 to 0963, Khodorkovsky was born in an ordinary family in Moscow. His father is Jewish and works as an engineer in a high-pressure machine tool workshop. Khodorkovsky wanted to be the CEO of a Soviet enterprise since he was a child. When he grew up, in order to realize this dream, he became a good boy and obeyed social rules wholeheartedly. After successfully completing his studies, Khodorkovsky asked to be assigned to a key military enterprise, but this was rejected by the relevant departments. Although no one explained the reason to him, he always thought it was because of his Jewish descent.

Rejected, he had to choose another way out. As the darling of the Youth League, he got a chance to open a "Youth Cafe", but the final result was not very smooth. Khodorkovsky once called this experience "unpleasant" in his memory.

Two consecutive jobs ended in failure, which made Khodorkovsky very depressed. The former image of a good boy gradually disappeared from him and was replaced by unscrupulous means to seek benefits. Under the protection of his accumulated youth league network, he founded the "Youth Science and Technology Innovation Center", ostensibly to let young scientists make money by solving factory problems, but actually behind it is to convert non-cash credit into cash. In this process, Khodorkovsky allocated a certain proportion to the participants and his own umbrella, the Youth League. In this way, Khodorkovsky not only earned the first bucket of gold in his life, but also won the gratitude of the participants. In addition, he also found a company with a large amount of foreign exchange to convert non-cash credit into foreign exchange. At this time, he was less than 25 years old.

After that, he became more ambitious and targeted the bank he had dreamed of for a long time. From 65438 to 0998, Khodorkovsky officially registered a bank named Mehnert Pa, and the whole process was not hindered by any state organs, which was the advantage brought by his interpersonal relationship. After that, an advertisement about Paco Bank in Mehnert appeared on TV:

Later, with the help of political rights, Mehnat Pablo Bank became an intermediary commercial bank for government loans to enterprises, and Khodorkovsky made a lot of profits.

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian leader Yeltsin implemented "shock therapy" at home, and using loopholes in policies and reforms, Khodorkovsky quickly converged a lot of wealth:

1995, in the auction of Yukos, Khodorkovsky finally "took Yukos with Yukos' money". After successfully winning Yukos, Khodorkovsky successfully controlled Russian oil resources and became a real oligarch.

Khodorkovsky, who has huge wealth, is still not satisfied with the status quo, and he began to extend his tentacles to politics:

Even Yeltsin's re-election and Putin's coming to power were the result of oligarchy. Compared with berezovsky's high-profile role as the godfather of the Kremlin, Khodorkovsky is more low-key. Therefore, while Putin launched a "war" against oligarchs, Khodorkovsky began to rebuild his image and compensate depositors whose interests were damaged by the bankruptcy of Mehnert Palpa Bank. At the same time, he boldly reformed the operation of Yukos Company and hired a large number of foreign executives.

Since 2003, Khodorkovsky has shown great interest in politics, and his wealth at that time was enough to support his campaign. Therefore, he began to openly challenge Putin's position. For the arrogant behavior of domestic oligarchs, Putin once again made clear his tough attitude: die or roll.

On February 19, 2003, Putin held a meeting with some influential Russian businessmen to discuss issues such as national economic construction. The meeting was broadcast live on TV to the whole country. At first, the meeting went very smoothly, and some original topics were being discussed in an orderly way. Unexpectedly, in the middle of the meeting, Khodorkovsky suddenly took out a PPT document carefully prepared in advance and bluntly pointed out his dissatisfaction with the existing problems of the Putin government. In front of the people of the whole country, the sharp words of this document instantly frozen the atmosphere of the venue.

Obviously, Putin did not expect this. However, he smiled at the storm and immediately responded positively to Khodorkovsky's provocation: "A company like Yukos has an amazing amount of oil reserves. The question is, where does the money come from? Don't forget the problem of tax evasion! "

Putin's words directly put Khodorkovsky's economic problems on the table, so that he originally wanted to anger Putin, but in the end he didn't know how to respond to this question.

In the early morning of June 25th, 2003, just over eight months after Khodorkovsky openly challenged Putin, he was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service, and the Russian General Prosecutor's Office accused him of seven charges:

After that, Khodorkovsky was detained in a prison near the Finnish border, that is, the notorious Skaya-Tishna prison in Bater, and then transferred to cell 4. Yukos was finally photographed by an unknown company, Lake Baikal Financial Group, and the once-popular Yukos gradually faded out of people's sight.

It is worth mentioning that in prison, Mr Khodorkovsky also said to the people around him:

On May 16, 2005, Khodorkovsky was convicted on four counts. On February 30th, 20 13, Putin formally signed an amnesty order to release Khodorkovsky, just as the outside world unanimously agreed that he would sit at the bottom of the prison. After he was released from prison, Khodorkovsky moved to Switzerland. 20 14, he initiated.

During his ten years in prison, Khodorkovsky installed surveillance cameras at his bedside, workbench and other places, and was always monitored when meeting with lawyers. At the beginning, if he had taken Putin's warning seriously, perhaps this decade of life would not have been spent in prison.

Putin's attitude of sending a message by arresting Khodorkovsky is clear: if you don't interfere in politics, you can make good money. This practice has also completely changed the oligarch's attitude towards politics. Although there are new oligarchs in Russia, their power and wealth are very fragile, which is different from the period of the seven oligarchs.