this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2025
529 points (99.1% liked)

World News

48182 readers
1981 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Vladimir Putin’s government has launched an aggressive campaign to nationalize the assets of Konstantin Strukov, one of Russia’s richest men and the owner of the country’s largest gold mining company. The move marks a sharp escalation in the Kremlin’s efforts to extract wealth from within its own elite as the financial toll of the war in Ukraine deepens.

Strukov, whose fortune is estimated at over $3.5 billion, is the founder of Yuzhuralzoloto—a gold empire built over decades with strong ties to the Kremlin. But on July 5, his private jet was grounded by Russian authorities as it prepared to leave for Turkey. His passport was reportedly seized, and the aircraft barred from departing.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] arc99@lemmy.world 17 points 4 hours ago

Soon these oligarchs won't even own a window to jump out of

[–] doo@sh.itjust.works 19 points 6 hours ago

What a great way to show the inefficiency of sanctions! /s

[–] jaupsinluggies@feddit.uk 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 20 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

And let this be a lesson to US Billionaires.

[–] Tryenjer@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

If most of them are as smart and lucid as Musk, they won't learn anything.

US billionaires think they can control Trump, and that's very likely true. The worst is yet to come for these billionaires when someone who can truly reverse the power dynamics and thus rule them with an iron fist, as well as the common people, takes the throne.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Trump cannot be controlled, everything is purely transactional with him. The moment he gains more from taking businesses by force, thats what he will do.

Trust and deals have no meaning to him. This is a theif without honor.

[–] oppy1984@lemdro.id 27 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (2 children)

Somebody didn't watch Rules for Rulers, keep your elite happy or they'll come together and turn on you.

Fingers crossed.

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

You remember those old “In Soviet Russia” backwards jokes? It’s like that, but unironically.

Putin has consolidated power to the point that he doesn’t serve at the behest of Russian billionaires; they only exist due to his whims - and they can cease to exist just as quickly.

‘Blowout’ by Rachel Maddow touches on this, it’s an interesting read/listen.

[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 1 points 6 minutes ago

They are refering to a YouTube video I think.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 5 points 6 hours ago

Not if you have a loyal, competent police apparatus to round up anyone who dares to step out of line.

[–] WiseScorpio@lemmy.world 20 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Strukov is about to suffer the effects of defenestration.

[–] McDropout@lemmy.world 19 points 13 hours ago

It’s giving Elon-Trump vibes

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 124 points 19 hours ago (6 children)

This is a pretty good example of why I say even millinoaires and billionaires should support a functional democractic society with taxation and regulation and social safety nets. Its the old penny wise and pound foolish. Getting a sliver more and a sliver more and then you lose it all because the rule of law was thrown out long ago. It won't necessarily take that long to. At a certain point it could happen at any time. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't.

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Rich people live under the fear of losing it all. As sharing is synonymous with losing to them, no one wants it and everyone is caught in this loop.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'm becoming convinced it's an actual mental disease, or at least grossly maladaptive

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 3 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's a mental disease in the same sense as drapetomania used to be

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapetomania

Drapetomania was a proposed mental illness that […] hypothesized as the cause of enslaved Americans fleeing captivity.

I could make some guesses, but I'm not sure what you meant by this. What did you mean?

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 1 points 2 minutes ago

Some adaptation pretty human mechanism which looks unnatural because it's not us who experience it although given the same circumstances we would do the same

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Smaller scale millionaires perhaps. Once they go multinational, it becomes very difficult to significantly harm them even if one country decides to dispossess their business. This has already happened to large corporations that exist today through nationalization at various places and points in time. E.g. Shell after Venezuelan oil nationalization.

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 hours ago

That requires rule of law to actually work. Putin is well known to murder problematic oligarchs. Combined with some proper blackmail, that tends to work very well.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 5 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Or you end being shoot on the street and the entire world celebrates it.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 hours ago

That was a fun day

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 61 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

This all depends on the people born into wealth being reasonable people.

Most are unhinged psychopaths or nepo babies with too much ego.

Which is why wealth needs to be forcefully redistributed, they won't do it voluntarily.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 14 points 13 hours ago

Wealth is actually being redistributed quite a bit in Russia right now. The oligarchs are paying for the war and "the people" are getting much higher wages either in the military or because of labor shortages.

It's not great, what with all the death and destruction. But Russians gini coefficient is going down fast.

[–] HailSeitan@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

Hamilton Nolan has made a similar argument

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 31 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

a functional democratic society would not have billionaires and hopefully millionaires neither

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 41 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Strukov’s company has denied the incident entirely, stating that he was in Moscow on the day in question and calling the reports “disinformation.” But court documents confirm that a judge had already banned him and his family from leaving the country, and government agencies moved quickly to enforce it.

I will now recommend the Sad Oligarch podcast. Short series on the mysterious deaths of Russian oligarchs in the last few years.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 6 points 10 hours ago

A friend of a friend is the daughter of a Russian oligarch. It was a messy situation in which she was at risk of being drawn into the politics, even though her dad was an asshole who she would've been glad to see defenestrated. I only know the surface level info, but it sounds like a fucked up situation in many ways

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] bytesonbike@discuss.online 179 points 21 hours ago (7 children)

Billionaires siding with dictators thinking they'll be protected?

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 103 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

It's funny to me that they think they'll be special, every single time. "They won't throw me out the window for my fortune!"

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 27 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

Well, in the case of Nazi Germany it worked spectacularly well. Many of Germanys most rich people are inheritors to industrial fortunes that got unimaginably rich with selling weapons to the Nazi army and using forced labor from the concentration camps. The families Quandt/Klatten (BMW) and Porsche/Piech (Porsche,VW, Audi...) come to mind directly. The Krupps are also still in the game although they have gambled a lot of money away over the past decades

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 5 points 5 hours ago

Never ask Mr. Kühne where his family's fortune came from, or what their most popular cargo was in the 40s.

[–] NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

It is worth mentioning that in the case of krupps they made a lot of money selling arms in WWI and they purchased newspapers to sell the war to increase profits.

Own all the newspapers... Propaganda... Seems familiar.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 28 minutes ago* (last edited 28 minutes ago)

They made a good coffee grinder though. We’re still running our’s from the early 90s.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 19 points 17 hours ago

Ooooh, gringo broligarchs, cast your eyes upon all the fucks left to give, and see that $Trump wallet may also be empty.

[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 70 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (24 children)

The USA elite should take notice. It'll happen to them too. Trump will ruin them if things get between himself and them.

load more comments (24 replies)
[–] pawnfuture@lemmy.world 33 points 19 hours ago

This is the oligarchy that American technocrats want to recreate at home. Owning things is dependent on being alive. Maybe paying a couple percent extra on taxes is worth it.

load more comments
view more: next ›