Notes on Russia

Russia and its redoubtable president, Vladimir Putin, have been much in the news lately. The latest flurry came when Putin was taken out behind the woodshed at the G20 conference in the Philippines last weekend over his recent moves to inject more Russian troops and arms into Ukraine.
For today’s Outside the Box we have two pieces that deliver deeper insights into the situation with Russia and Putin. The first is from my good friend Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group and author of Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. You probably caught my mention of Ian’s presentation at the institutional fund manager conference where we both spoke last weekend. He had some unsettling things to say about Russia; and so when he followed up with an email to me on Monday, I asked if he’d let me share the section on Russia with you. Understand, Ian is connected, and so what you’re about to be treated to here is analysis from way inside. (He’ll be presenting at our Strategic Investment Conference again next April, too.)
Then we turn to a piece that my friend Vitaliy Katsenelson published last week in his monthly column in Institutional Investor. I need to preface this one by mentioning that Vitaliy was born in Murmansk, Russia, where he lived until age 18, when his family emigrated to the US. Fast-forward 23 years, and today Vitaliy is Chief Investment Officer for Investment Management Associates in Denver and author of the highly successfulActive Value Investing: Making Money in Range-Bound Markets and The Little Book of Sideways Markets. That’s quite a journey, and Vitaliy has some very strong feelings about the country he left as well as the one he came to. In his intro to today’s piece he admits,
[This is] one of the most emotionally taxing things I ever wrote. A few days ago my wife looked at me and said, ‘When are you going to be done with it; this article is bringing you down.’ She was right.

This post was published at Mauldin Economics on NOVEMBER 19, 2014.