7: How billionaires Putin and Xi are funding war

Despite years of intense sanctions, regimes like Russia and Iran are not only surviving but thriving at keeping the money rolling in.    What makes it worse is that we can’t blame it all on Tehran or Moscow. The uncomfortable truth is that much of this network of corrupt finance was created by us in the West… London being a primary culprit.    In this episode David Patrikarakos speaks to Pulitzer Prize winning historian Anne Applebaum about how these countries are using shadow financial networks to earn and launder hundreds of billions every year, how it's having an increasingly dangerous effect on global geo-politics and why the West is partly to blame.   Producer: Max Bower  Editor: Alex Graham  Executive Producer: Bella Soames  Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini  Host: David Patrikarakos  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices