Genocide for Profits
by Lawrence Kadish • May 25, 2022 at 3:30 pm
Putin's genocidal war on Ukraine may have less to do with empire and far more to do with profits.
Enormous profits.
There has been considerable commentary about Putin's war motives, from a belief that Ukraine is little more than an insurgent province of Mother Russia to a fear that Ukraine is becoming a satellite of Western democracies. But those motives miss the fact that Putin rules by allowing oligarchs to enrich themselves and -- by extension -- himself. And like any criminal, he is going where the money is and there is much money buried in the ground of Ukraine.
While it has historically been considered a rich agricultural region, it is now considered extremely valuable. Putin understands that Ukraine is also very rich in the precious metal lithium. One source reports that for fixed contracts, the annual average lithium price in the United States was $17,000 per ton in 2021, more than double that in 2020.
