re: #94 austin_blue

And they may be “loans”, as in,

“We need to make these rubles clean and we hold a billion dollars of your paper. The Big Guy wants sanctions lifted, so if you scratch our back, we just might think about scratching yours, you stupid capitalist. Living in a kleptocracy is a much easier way to run an economy, at least for the .1%.”

Like Teleskiguy alluded to, I believe that Putin offered Trump a big chunk of Gazprom in return for lifting sanctions, and Trump took him up on it.

The greedy son of a bitch sold out the country for Russian money AFAIC.