The Seattle Times has a surprisingly well informed article on a former oligarch, Sergei Pugachev, who, like many other people, fell out with Putin along the way. However, he claims a large share in giving Putin a boost in Yeltsin's inner circle. Is he to blame, then, ultimately, for all the problems which ensued ??
For it was Putin himself who ordered the FSB to pursue Rocor so aggressively ; Putin who made it a vital priority to bring the emigre Church under the control of the in-house, state-controlled Moscow Patriarchate. Think if Putin had never arrived at the supreme command of the RF ! Rocor might be still independent to this day !
"[the oligarch, Sergei] Pugachev .... added that he does not “really need” the billions of dollars he is seeking in compensation but does want vindication against a Russian system he helped put in place by promoting Putin as a successor to President Boris Yeltsin.
“I took part in bringing him to power,” he said, recalling how at the end of Yeltsin’s tenure in 1999 he had sung Putin’s praises to Yeltsin’s daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko, and her partner Valentin Yumashev, an influential Kremlin insider. “I now see this was a mistake,” he added."
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-worl ... tribution/
This oligarch is described in the article as a patron of the Russian Orthodox Church. That seems rather rare amongst the RF's lot of tycoons.
Does anyone know to which Orthodox projects Pugachev donated ? Perhaps the rebuilding of Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, as he might have held his greatest power at about that time ?
Other major Church renovation projects in Russia too ?
Ha ! Maybe this now-resident of the Cote d'Azur should be approached for help for Toc's in France... ! Aside from his major court case, he has probably very little to do and might be interested to donate some large sums of money and/or provide property. Maybe ?
This may not be as crazy of an idea as it sounds, because Pugachev, like the financier Bill Browder in the article, probably would like to get back at Putin in any way possible as revenge for being kicked out of the Russian financial scene. If Pugachev is sincerely religious, he would be one of the very few of these powerful billionaires or former billionaires who would even support Orthodox causes. The bulk of the tycoons are Jewish.