The Browder script

You gotta admit it’s a compelling story line. Can-do Yankee hedge-fund sharpie goes to Russia to teach the locals the ins and outs of capitalism. As he was looting, stuffing his pockets, plundering investing billions of dollars in post-Soviet Russia, he became alarmed at the strong-arm tactics Putin was using to extort hard-earned cash from well-meaning foreigners like himself.

Unlucky for Putin, Bill Browder wasn’t just going to put up with that nonsense. No, Browder is a rule of law kinda guy. Luckily, Browder has all kinds of friends in all kinds of really high places, and thanks to his valiant and selfless efforts, “Magnitsky Act” legislation is sprouting up across the verdant democratic meadows throughout the Nations of Virtue.

Andrei Nekrasov is a well-regarded Russian film-maker who was an outspoken Putin critic. He was hired to direct the script Browder had written about his adventures in Russia.

That would seem a marriage made in heaven; a Putin critic of long standing with an impeccable reputation paired with a virtuous American hedge-fund manager with super-deep pockets to produce the ultimate anti-Putin opus.

Alas, it didn’t take Nekrasov long to deviate from the script. The more he delved into the “facts” of the matter the more he had doubts about the script he was supposed to be working from. Browder and Nekrasov had an acrimonious falling out.

They’re still at loggerheads to this day. On the one side, an internationally esteemed anti-Putin film-maker, and on the other side, a guy who made billions in Russia while the country was suffering an apocalyptic economic collapse.

I know whose integrity I’d be banking with, but I’m an outlier.

The Nekrasov documentary got finished, but good luck trying to watch it. Yes, it’s available on YouTube, but for some reason I’ve not been able to find a version in which the sound actually works, so unless you’re highly adept at lip-reading Russian speakers, it’s pretty much useless.

Hmm… you don’t think that could be censorship, do you?

Of course not!

We, after all, are the Nations of Virtue, and even though Browder had to renounce his US citizenship for tax reasons, he’s one of ours.

And Nekrasov obviously found his way into Putin’s pockets.

That’s the Browder script, and I for one am sticking to it.