Last week, Western media propagandists unveiled a new mascot of anti-Putin resistance in Russia. The BBC identified Boris Mints, a sixty-four-year-old financier, as “one of a few rich Russian businesspeople to speak out against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin.” During his interview, Mints compared Putin’s special military operation to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and declared that “This war is a result of madness and hunger for power of a single person, Vladimir Putin, supported by his inner circle.”
Since its inception, Mints has been a strong critic of Putin’s decisive action in Ukraine. In March, he wrote an op-ed in the Times of Israel that called on the West to wage a vicious campaign against Russia using harsh economic sanctions and lethal military aid. Then in April, the wealthy businessman penned another piece in Jewish News that likened Putin’s Russia to Nazi Germany.
Yet, the billionaire’s relations with the Russian state haven’t always been so poor. During the 1990s, he served in President Yeltsin’s administration which was infamous for its obscene corruption. Yeltsin himself was a total embarrassment for Russia – a weak, drunken leader and an easy target for nefarious domestic actors as well as foreign subversives.
Under Yeltsin, Russia endured one of its darkest historical periods as a network of crafty financiers, bankers, and industrialists ruthlessly pillaged a nation still reeling from its Cold War defeat. Without a strong central government to defend the people, these vultures feasted on the corpse of Soviet Russia. After owning Yeltsin like a dog, they hoped to do the same with his successor—Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
Upon his ascension to power, Mints met with Putin to discuss his plans to “grow Russia’s democracy into the 21st Century.” Yet, Putin had no interest in the money changer’s schemes and fired Mints on his second day in office. Of course, this was merely a first shot in the new President’s campaign to crush the oligarchic power monopoly and subordinate these unscrupulous thugs to the Russian nation.
Famously, Putin took aim at the highest echelons of Russia’s financial elite including all-powerful billionaires Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Gusinksy, and Leonid Nevzelin. Khodorkovsky had made his wealth through a corrupt “Loans for Shares” scheme during the Yeltsin years and founded a neoliberal group, Open Russia, in 2001 to promote his financial interests and subvert Putin’s government under the guise of “democracy” and “liberty.” Gusinsky, a media tycoon and Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, pursued a similar route of backing neoliberal economics alongside social liberalism before facing legal action from the Kremlin and ultimately having to leave the country entirely. Nevzelin, a corrupt banker and oil baron, fled Russia for Israel where he resides to this day.
Mints, though lacking substantial political influence, was able to continue operating in the private sector. The billionaire banker acquired his wealth primarily through the O1 Group – an investment company that he founded in 2003 and sold just four years ago. Before the sale, Mints served as “chairman of one of the largest pension asset managers in Russia” until it finally “found itself in an open conflict against” the nation’s central bank during a protracted legal dispute that began in 2017.
In the mold of other oligarchs targeted by Putin’s government, Mints is a well-connected man with global influence. He currently serves as Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Conference of European Rabbis. Mints is also a member of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University and the President of the Boris Mints Institute which is headquartered at the school. As the WJC explains, the billionaire expanded his family’s “philanthropic” activities in 2016 by establishing the Mints Charitable Foundation. Notably, one of the chief “aim[s] and guiding principles” of the charity is to support “Jewish heritage.” Accordingly, the institute undertook an intriguing “educational and charitable project for publishing the Talmud in the Russian language.” This initiative “aims to enlighten the general public with the wisdom of the Babylonian Talmud, the cornerstone of Orthodox Judaism.”
Certainly, no one would doubt that Mints seeks to spread “enlightenment” to the Russian people. In his Jewish News article, Mints stated that he actively “finance[s] charitable projects devoted to forming an open and democratic Russia.” He explained that in the late 1990s, he had “joined the Union of Right Forces (URF), an economically liberal (therefore ‘Right’) political party.” The URF’s leaders were “prominent progressive and liberal politicians and economists” and “was the only liberal party in the history of Russia” devoted to the “freedom and development of democratic institutions.”
Of course, a liberal democratic Russia would be a gold mine for cosmopolitan elites like Mints. Without a strong, nationalist leader controlling the reins of power, Russia would be as easy to loot as it was in the ‘90s. While the establishment often couches its exclusive interests in humanitarian clothing, they covertly maneuver for a weak state that cannot interfere with their pathological pursuit of material resources.
Moreover, these types see Russia as a mere vessel for economic activity, devoid of higher meaning. The concept of Russia as a cultural entity with a two-thousand-year-old history is totally alien to them. Of course, the Russians see themselves as a distinct nation living in their ancestral homeland. Yet, for these international swindlers, this is a serious obstacle to their relentless profiteering and poses a direct, existential threat to their own kind. Thus, when President Putin demanded that they cease plundering the Russian people and make moderate sacrifices for the sake of national regeneration, they reacted with tremendous hostility and deviously plotted to subvert his rule. Rather than work to rebuild Russia in the wake of its lost war, the oligarchs chose to gorge on the mangled carcass.
Now, at another pivotal moment in Russian history — and as the daughter of one of President Putin’s top advisers is assassinated — these men have proven that they have no loyalty to their country of birth. Instead, from Washington, London, and Tel Aviv, they happily cheer on Western forces plunging deep into the heart of Russia’s ancestral territory. Thankfully, President Putin continues to send these animals to prison or force them into exile, while neutering those who choose to remain and ensuring that they remain obedient to the Kremlin. Today, Russia is no longer the pawn of a bloodsucking globalist cabal, but is instead a strong, virile nation capable of defending its people.
For Americans, this incredible story of a great man wresting control of the state from nefarious elements and restoring his nation to its former glory should be a tremendous inspiration. Given that 1990s Russia resembles modern America in fundamental ways, Putin’s new order should serve as a crucial reference point. Today, the United States is being bled dry by parasitic elites who care only about enriching themselves. These forces are more than happy to dispossess the American people under the lie of liberal democracy, all the while working them to death like worthless cattle. Akin to Yeltsin’s Russia, the United States requires a strong, nationalist leader who will put these scoundrels in their place and Make America Great Again.
