Russian Cash Crisis - Joe Blogs

[Warpy]

2. Konstantin at Inside Russia had more information

Apparently there was a 2 hour, closed door meeting where this occurred. The one oligarch who decided to pony up was the one in charge of mining gold. While Russia can't trade its gold with the west, it has ready customers elsewhere, so he's in good shape. Everything else is going to hell and the other oligarchs are trying to keep themselves afloat any way they can, paying skeleton staff on little income, cutting work week hours, or just shutting down. They told Putin nyet. Reportedly, he left the meeting angry.

So either a lot of oligarchs are going to see if they can fly or their fortunes and businesses will just be grabbed out from under them while they watch. I'm guessing the former will precede the grabbing.

The big deal here is that they finally said no. They know that their only alternative is selling off Russia's industries to China, and that means the end of Russia, it will become a puppet state of the Chinese.