re: #170 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

When Russians loan you money, they don’t want you to pay back the principal…they want eternal interest, often in non-monetary form.

Yup. That article also goes into different non-government entities in Russia implementing small, individual plans which they believe will advance Putin’s stated policy goals, as a means of currying favour if successful.

The idea is that not just Russia’s foreign ministry, or FSB, or SVR try to implement policy or engage in espionage; a huge sector of the country is employed in a sort of ad-hoc effort to advance Russia’s goals.