Has Vladimir Putin Stolen $200 Billion from the Russian People

A friend gave me a copy of the 1971 movie "Nicholas and Alexandra" for Christmas since he knows that I am a history nerd with an emphasis in Russian history.  The tax away from the film is that Nicholas and Alexandra were inept and totally over their heads in ruling Russia as autocrats.  That said, they tried to do what they thought best for Russia and, compared to their Bolshevik successors ruled with a kind and gentle hand.  Indeed, Wikipedia gives a taste of what Bolshevik rule brought:

During the Red Terror, the Cheka carried out at least 250,000 summary executions of "enemies of the people" with estimates reaching above a million.Some 300,000–500,000 Cossacks were killed or deported during de-cossackization, out of a population of around three million. . . . . The industrial production value descended to one seventh of the value of 1913, and agriculture to one third.

Now, Russia has another would be Tsar: Vladimir Putin.  While Putin hasn't inflicted the mass murders of his secret police predecessors, Putin is robing the Russian people on a scale that would have shocked the old imperial establishment.  One hedge fund manager estimates that Putin has stolen $200 billion from the Russian people.   Business Insider has details.  Here are some highlights:

Hedge fund manager Bill Browder, once the largest foreign investor in Russia, estimates Russian President Vladimir Putin's wealth at $200 billion — which would make him by far the richest man in the world.

When asked to estimate his net worth by Fareed Zakaria of CNN, Browder said: "I believe that it is $200 billion.

"After 14 years in power of Russia, and the amount of money that the country has made, and the amount of money that hasn't been spent on schools and roads and hospitals and so on — all that money is in property, Swiss bank accounts, shares, [and] hedge funds managed for Putin and his cronies."

Putin, a former KGB lieutenant colonel, became Russian prime minister in August 1999 and president in May 2000.   Browder notes that the "first eight or 10 years about reign over Russia was about stealing as much money that he could."

Putin consolidated power while making his friends and himself absurdly rich from state coffers.

"Soon after taking over, [Putin] made it clear that he intended to remove the Yeltsin-era elite and to put a new elite in its place—mostly from St. Petersburg, equally corrupt, but loyal exclusively to him," Anne Applebaum in wrote recently in The New York Review of Books.

A full transcript of Browder's statements can be found here.  The Russian people need to overthrow Putin and seize the stolen wealth as soon as possible.