I laughed my ass off when I saw that. Either someone REALLY takes their job seriously, or they have a fantastic sense of humour. I refuse to believe it's both.
That would be highly illegal, of course... but yeah, I have fantasies about some sort of underground power cartel funding special ops task forces that do exactly that kind of thing. It helps me sleep at night. That being said, there is rumour that some whale in Russia has put a million dollar bounty on Putin.
People pay a shit ton of money for NFTs, so they can brag to their other rich friends. I'm sure the amount someone would pay for the actual disembodied head of Putin to display in their basement "special" freezer is huge.
Or it could be him trying to avoid the situation where it's seized, or he's forced to sell, like the racist old dude that used to own the Clippers.
Sold and donated vs seized results in the same financial loss to him, so the move has to be about something other than the raw dollar amount.
It might be worth the risk in a country where toilet paper and Levi’s jeans are considered a form of currency.
Given Putin’s history, can you imagine taking a shot at him and missing? Trying to ghost out ahead of someone with a vengeance boner, total control of state level intelligence assets, and absolutely no moral compunctions? Even if you manage to dodge finding out what your own uncooked genitals taste like, I hope you don’t have any family or other human connections you care about. Even somewhere where Levi’s and TP are currency - money only spends if you aren’t busy roleplaying “The Good Old Days” with a urologist who got their initial training from the KGB.
Welcome back, dude. Yeah, it would either have to be a conspiracy of multiple actors or some professional hitman like the Jackal that takes him out. The problem is, anyone with any influence in Russia is rich enough where $50M might not even be worth it.
I don't think it's a set bounty as much as one (or several) of his inner circle realize they will get their billions back, and can emigrate and retire if they remove him from the equation. At a certain point, a Russia without Putin becomes a more palatable alternative than what we're seeing now. The question is did Putin get himself a Pence, in an effort to say "get rid of me, fine, but the next guy is way worse."? And at what point does Putin himself become the problem holding up negotiations? I find it hard to believe this was 100% Putin's doing, and he had no support from others. He might claim responsibility now, and surely, it wasn't well planned. Folks who supported it earlier might not be so supportive now. But, I can't imagine he didn't do some risk calculus and build some consensus before pulling the proverbial trigger.