Jonas Max Ferris: Placing Russia in a ‘Dark Bubble’ Is What Putin Wants

EXCERPT:

FERRIS: "Whenever Putin has been aggressive doing his sphere of influence stuff, it is during high periods of energy prices, and that goes from the 2008 with going into Georgia, high energy prices back then if you recall, 2014 annexation of Crimea, it goes back to the Soviet invasion in '79 of Afghanistan, which also ended in '89 when oil prices fell back down. That's where the money comes from. It's not from flights on Aeroflot to the U.K., it's not from these oligarchs' yachts. It comes from the energy and commodity business. When those prices are high, they have money to afford these kind of military adventures. If the West was serious, then they would attack that area, sanction that area, drive those prices down, even potentially cause a recession here, that is what is called to fight the supposed next Hitler, not just to punish citizens where you can't transfer a few hundred dollars to family or friends you have in Russia, or Coke has to leave even though they've been in there since it was the Soviet Union, I think that was very sad for everybody. Our Western influence, our movies, we saw Disney come out, these are things that helped bring down the Soviet Union by showing the success and amazement of a capitalist society. To remove all that and just have them live in a dark bubble again, if anything, it is what Putin, in some ways, wants. He wanted maybe less Western influence, both social media, which kind of grew under his power, and doesn't — you know, now he is getting what he wants basically. He could also buy back stakes in these companies at very low prices because we don't want to own them anymore, we don't want to do business there, we want to cut them off.”