Friedman's comments read as a "let's get along". Deripaska's out on a limb though. Not pulling punches. Probably highlights how close he is to America in relative terms. He probably figures of all the notorious oligarchs, he stands the best chance of permanent defection.
I would wager that 95% of the solutions within the American and European intelligence community go through the oligarchs. The general public take on this is looking at all the sticks and refusing to see the carrots. I've seen no mention of American RQ-4s calling down attacks on Russian shipping outside of intelligence Twitter, for example, and my only question about these supposed 70 MiGs theoretically headed to Ukraine is "are they going to be replaced by F35s or Eurofighters?" People are very upset that Hungary won't allow offensive weapons through its territory without recognizing that the consensus view on Hungary was they'd be Soviet again in a heartbeat. It seems to me as if the American intelligence community has been permitted to do their jobs. It makes sense; they were built against the Soviets so this is about as close to design intent as I can imagine. Someone pointed out that Biden is the first president we've had since Bush Senior with any foreign policy experience and it's kinda lookin' like American geopolitical infighting isn't going to be nearly as much of a factor as it has been recently.
I hope Sleepy Joe uses substantially all of his State of the Union to talk about the implications of Ukraine for the US and the world and shames the fuck out of the Tucker Carlson (who apparently gets featured on Russian State TV now) wing of the party. Then I hope that every democrat uses "Putin is a savvy genius" in every fucking TV ad this year. All politics isn't local when the threat is an ascendant USSR.
I dunno, Deripaska could be maneuvering in the hopes of a repeal of the U.S. sanctions specifically targeting him. I'm glad they managed to briefly mention that, good job, CNN. To first order, the oligarchs are simply reacting to their new economic predicament, surely. Deripaska, who received 2016 polling data from Manafort, might be in a boat similar to Firtash, the guy Giuliani hoped would manufacture dirt on Hunter Biden. Serves as a nice reminder that the previous administration treated Ukraine like an extra-judicial sandbox where Putin and Trump's middlemen could play.
Whatever it is, it's certainly self-serving. That's the problem with leading a pack of self-serving billionaires. As soon as they don't see it as in their personal interests to play along, the jig is up. They all saw what happened to michael khorokowski back in the day, so clearly they think that staying silent at this point is likely to be worse than that. Which says a lot.
Anyone in 2022 still saying "Why shouldn't we allow multi-multi-multi-billionaires??" is either making a bad faith argument or a total idiot. It's economic autocracy mirroring political autocracy (and vice versa), it's no wonder the two coexist so often. Kneecapping or outright eliminating democracy is the best way to allow wealth hoarding. Hopefully we can find a domestic solution to American billionaires' seeing Trump as in their personal interests before it's too late.