Comment by orbital-decay

The word "oligarch" has "arch" in it, which means power. What power the supposed oligarchs had over the decision to invade the neighbors and start a massive wealth redistribution inside the country, that practically depraved them of what they had? Lisin refused to call himself "oligarch" in 2018 first, and everyone laughed at him at the time. Maybe he had better insight than the armchair experts, after all.

> regardless of the power he has, Putin is still a product of the system.

Yes, and the system in question is FSB, or vaguely siloviki in general, not the business elite. It's extremely decentralized.