Yahoo Finance Bill Browder: Political divisions are 'directly the result of Vladimir Putin'
Russian president Vladimir Putin is directly to blame for the political divisions we see around the world today, said Russian-investor-turned-critic Bill Browder.
The CEO of Hermitage Capital, who is considered to be one of Putin’s most high-profile critics, has been campaigning against Russian fraud and corruption since he left the country over a decade ago.
“Russia is not in a good place. The economy is not doing great. They haven’t diversified … Russia can’t rise to the level of the West. And so Vladimir Putin’s big goal is to try to bring the West down to the level of Russia,” he said in a special one-to-one interview with Yahoo Finance UK.
In his interview at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Browder outlined how Putin has deftly used social media and technology to exacerbate social and political divisions.
“He tries to install divisive characters in different countries as leaders. How does he do that? By manipulating elections, by cyberattacks, by hacking emails and putting out embarrassing information on political candidates,” he said.
“He’s causing a lot of trouble. A lot of the division we see here in Davos, and a lot of the division we see around the world, is directly the result of Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Last week, the World Economic Forum released a report warning that the world risks “sleepwalking into a crisis” as geopolitical tensions make it increasingly difficult for leaders to come together to solve pressing global problems.
“Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking. Instead, divisions are hardening,” the independent international organisation warned as it released its annual ‘Global Risks Report’.
The report summarised that some of the most urgent risks facing the world right now include climate change and the potential for devastating, large-scale cyber attacks. Yet world leaders are spending too much time on issues such as trade wars and “taking back control” of their national interests to spend time on these important shared problems, it warned.
