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A long read by @FranklinFoer: theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…. The author unhelpfully argues that corruption is a "Russian value" (it's not), and that the KGB exported corruption to America (it did not). He does admit in the end that America was corrupt long before Putin.
His account of how the KGB laundered billions ignores the obvious: the looting of Russia in the 1990s was not a KGB operation. A simple overview of the careers of the most prominent oligarchs reveals that they had no or few connections with the world of intelligence.
Many of them later became prominent critics of Putin's regime; others threw their lot with Putin. The bottom line is this, people: corruption is a global evil that thrives on weak institutions & poor regulation. The source of this evil is greed, which predates Russia and America.
