Mikhail Prokhorov became the Russian oligarch Americans could love when he bought the Brooklyn Nets in 2010. He endeared himself further by hiring (Black) Avery Johnson as head coach; and even bought a little street cred by allowing Jay Z to front as co-owner.
What’s more, political pundits began hailing him as a pro-democracy dissident when he challenged neo-Stalinist Vladimir Putin for president of Russia in 2012. He even seemed to be more allied with American President Obama than with Russian President Putin when he slammed Edward Snowden as a traitor – after Putin gave him refuge last year.
Except that, here’s how I exposed Prokhorov as little more than a two-legged Russian Trojan Horse:
Of course it helps that, despite challenging Putin for the presidency last year, Prokhorov always hastens to clarify that he is more interested in laying the groundwork to become Putin’s political heir (in 14 years when he hopes Putin will be ready to retire) than in being his archrival.
If Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovsky, Prokhorov’s more famous fellow oligarchs, were willing to be as deferential to this neo-Stalinist thug, they would not be rotting away in prison or dead, respectively….
In any event, that Prokhorov has no fear of asserting, on American TV no less, that most Russians think Snowden is a traitor vindicates my view that Putin feels the same way too.
(“Prokhorov, Russian Owner of the NBA Nets: Majority of Russians Think Snowden’s a Traitor,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 8, 2013)
All the same, Prokhorov must have left his gullible sports and political fans shocked and dismayed on Monday when he declared it his patriotic duty to transfer ownership of the Nets to a Russian company. You might think he’s doing what any shrewd businessman would be doing to protect his assets. After all:
As one of the richest Russians with assets abroad, Prokhorov could be vulnerable if the Western powers escalate economic sanctions against Russia over its takeover of Crimea.
(Agence France-Presse, March 24, 2014)
Except that he’s merely acting like a puppet on the string of his master, Czar Putin:
President Vladimir Putin told company bosses on Thursday to bring their assets home and clean up their businesses to help Russia survive Western sanctions over Crimea and an economic downturn…
Some of Russia’s largest companies are registered abroad where they may benefit from lower tax rates but also may enjoy some distance from the Kremlin and feel beyond its reach.
(Reuters, March 20, 2014)
In fact, the reason Russian oligarchs are so heavily invested in Western countries is that Putin has an unnerving habit of confiscating profitable companies and throwing their owners in jail. And his targets are invariably those, like Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky, who question his political policies or, God forbid, champion policies of their own.
The other oligarchs have heeded the message. In Moscow on 1 July, Mr. Putin met the 21 most important oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea Football Club owner and oil and aluminium tycoon. On the same day, Russia’s tax authorities levelled another £1.8bn tax charge on Yukos oil for 2001. Being Russia, the timing was no coincidence. The message was clear: ‘Cross me like Khodorkovsky did, and I will nail you too.’
(russianlondon.ru, July14, 2004)
More to the point, though, Prokhorov’s declaration exposes just how disposed he is to genuflect to Putin’s demands. Because nobody in his right mind believes that the NBA would allow him to transfer ownership of the Nets to a Russian company while the president of the United States is threatening to not only freeze his assets but deport him to boot. Instead, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver would surely use his plenary powers to emulate Putin by making Prokhorov an offer he can’t refuse:
- transfer his ownership interest to his actual co-owner, real estate developer Bruce Ratner; or
- allow the NBA to hold the team in receivership until he can sell his interest or until Russia comes in from the cold, whichever comes first.
Apropos of the latter, Obama and other Western leaders voted in The Hague just yesterday not only to cancel plans for a G8 Summit in Sochi this summer, but also to kick Putin out of the group. Perhaps this is just as well; because Putin and his cronies used the $50-billion Sochi Olympics as an egregious kickback scheme quite. Nothing betrays this fact quite like Sochi already looking like a crumbling, desolate North-Korean settlement just weeks after the end of the Games. For the record, Putin laughed off the snub like a high-school girl putting on a brave, unfazed face after getting dumped on Facebook by the most popular boy in the school.
In any case, unless Putin swallows his pride and does everything necessary to make up with these Western leaders, Prokhorov will be forced to return to Russia to stand by his man … without the Nets.
Of course, Prokhorov is not the only Russian oligarch Putin has on a string. Indeed, the aforementioned Abramovich is also facing this Hobson’s choice of protecting his ass(ets) in the West or pleasing his master back home.
Reports are that Putin treats Abramovich like the kid brother he never had. Therefore, Abramovich will probably be most anxious to sign Putin’s pledge of return to avoid any hint of divided loyalties. No doubt he would ingratiate himself in Putin’s favor forever if declared the same kind of national pride in voluntarily divesting Western assets to reinvest in Russia that U.S. politicians declared after Russia issued (retaliatory) travel bans against them.
Ultimately, though, one only has to recall the fate that befell the aforementioned Mikhail Khodorkovsky to dismiss Prokhorov’s political utterances and posturing as nothing more than the puppetry of his master puppeteer, Vladimir Putin.
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