And i found this: this might be cool experience with the russian oligarchy. Let's welcome ben mesrick, whose 2015 book once upon a time in russia, the rise of the oligarchs, is a rare inside look at the lives of these billionaires who made their fortunes when the soviet union fell. His latest novel was just published as well. It's called the midnight ride, which is a historical thriller and ben.

I had forgotten, you wrote this book you're, so prolific, you've written so many things since um, but i saw a thread that you put on twitter the other day. Just talking about your time researching this book and writing it and the time you spent with the oligarchs i mean that is a rare, rare thing to get that much time up close with these people. Yeah i mean sometimes i try to forget. I try to forget.

I wrote this book as well. I mean it's a a crazy story. I spent a year hanging out with oligarchs in bars and clubs and yachts and owners. Clubs of uh of soccer teams and and what's going on right now, is really wild to watch.

The oligarchs put putin in power, but putin flipped it around on them, and i tell this story: um, that's amazing, but they found putin. He was a low-level kgb agent in st petersburg. They knew him because he helped set up a car dealership for one of them. They moved him to moscow, put him in power over the country, thinking they could control them, and then he flipped it around on them and became the biggest oligarch of all um.

So we're at this moment where we're trying to get the oligarchs to retake the power they once had, but their relationship with putin is is not what people think did the oligarchs realize this back in 2014 and 15, when you were meeting with them? Did they realize that they had lost control yeah? Because what happened was uh? They placed putin in power and in the first week of power, putin invited all of the oligarchs to stalin's old home, and this is a place where there's bullet holes in the walls where they used to line people up and putin. Sat these men down on the table and he said you've all made tons of money. You're, all billionaires! You can keep your money, but from here on out, you stay out of my way and any oligarch who stayed out of his way is an oligarch. Today, any oligarch did not was found hanging in their bathroom or fell down an elevator shaft or fell out of a helicopter.

So the the oligarchs understood when i was meeting with them. That putin was, you, know the leader um, that they used to run the country, and now they were running around london with their yachts and their beautiful homes, um so trying to force them to re-do what what it used to be to go back to the 90s Um is a really interesting situation. Um and we'll see what happens. I think you think they have the power to do something like that.

Do they undo this unholy alliance that they themselves you know two weeks ago, i would have said absolutely not um from from what i know about the alarks, and what i know about the relationship with putin is, is that putin is a strong man. He is very popular in his country. He chased the oligarchs out of out of out of russia and at the time they were known for the corruption. They had been handed all of the resources by by uh by yeltsin, um who picked them because they were friends with his party-hopping daughter.

So he hand-picked all of these oligarchs and gave one of them the aluminum companies and one of them the oil companies um, and so they were living very large. But as soon as putin came in everything shifted. So i would have said, no putin has all the power, but in the last couple of weeks we've seen uh something very different going on. I don't believe this is what putin planned on this was not a calculated situation that we're in right now, um, and so i think, we're at a place that that anything goes at this point you mean he's not in a calculated situation.

He miscalculated on the idea that the ukrainians would fight back so strongly. I think the world support took him by surprise. I think he believed he would move in. There would be some yelling for a couple days and then it would be business as usual.

I don't think he believed he'd ever be in a situation where the entire world is now isolating russia attempting to go after all, the yachts and all of the i mean it's an incredible move: we're chasing down yachts in the ocean. You know it's like a movie being played out in front of us, and i really don't think that this was the plan, but i also don't think saying: putin is this? Bully we stand up to is the correct way to look at it. Putin is a man who has a vision that he's had all along of resurrecting the soviet empire. From the very beginning he had said, the biggest mistake of the last century was the fall of the soviet empire.

So it's not that he's this bully lashing out at the world he's a person with a very defined vision and, as he gets closer to his end game, we have to understand that his goal is this: this giant empire and we have to deal with that. Not deal with an individual bully, you know, um. We have been hearing some of the comments. Robert was just talking about the comments from some of the oligarchs where they say: okay, we're going to sell this.

This football club and the proceeds are going to go to help the ukrainian people um. You have others who have said russian companies and russian oligarchs who have said we're not in favor of this. We don't want to see a war and aggression in ukraine. Are they saying this with cover from putin? Are they really stepping aside and taking a break from putin? Um? That's a great question.

I think that they are stepping out. I do think that there is some maneuvering going on here. This is not something that i think you would have heard. Roman abramovich talk about four weeks ago, um.

I think that they were very much putin's cash register. He said something and they did it and i think now, you're hearing them um getting nervous and it might be showing some some cracks in that in that power. Dynamic, um, it's hard to tell um, but i do think that we're seeing something that i would have. Never expected a couple weeks ago, some of these people speaking out um what seems to be against what putin wants wow um.

That was crazy in fight insightful, uh, author ben mesrich, and he was talking on cnbc putin's relationship with russian oligarchs and u.s sanctions against russia's elites uh. He, i guess his newest book right there once upon a time in russia, the rise of oligarchs. No, he wrote that previously and then midnight ride, i believe, is what they said. The newest one was, but that was some really interesting input, especially from someone who lived with them, like wow wow wow, what a cool way to look at it uh.

I just learned a lot myself of so many of them was hand-picked after the fall of the soviet union and then the oligarchs who didn't align with putin in when he was chasing the power that he currently has obviously in one way or another, ended up dead. So then he put the current oligarchs in their position and up until maybe now they would have just had his back and that's kind of the borderline authoritarian dictatorship tyrannical reach. He had on the situation, but this is kind of the rhetoric that we're hearing from people who really seem to be in the know is that no one really thought it was gon na. Go this way like this particular invasion and the fight that's being put up.

Not only from the very very brave ukrainian people, but also just like the rest of the world, doing what they can in one way or another of maybe the oligarchs aren't gon na have his back and maybe there's some cracks and chinks in this armor man uh. I might have to rewatch that again, but once again the person being interviewed, uh ben mesrich, an author, and he lived with them the name of the book right here once upon a time in russia, the rise of oligarchs, definitely a guy. He said it right. There used to have like go out with him and talk with him.

He saw how their life went interesting, what an interesting way to look uh, it's just a new lens to look at the current situation very happy. We watched that one. You.