Putin’s Glass Houses

Dictators who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Moskva-Citi has long provided a juicy target for Ukraine’s drones. Rising two miles west of Red Square, this steel and glass showcase of the “new Russia” constitutes Europe’s largest concentration of skyscrapers. Formally called Moscow International Business Center, this city within a city contains 16 of Europe’s 25 tallest buildings.The centerpiece, Federation East Tower, rises 93 stories. High-speed elevators whisk visitors one quarter of a mile into the sky. From the top, a platform offers commanding views of the East European plain as the Moscow River cuts oxbows through the soft steppe. In 2006, the buzz and excitement were captured by a breathless New York Times Magazine story headlined “Manhattan on the Moskva.”The Russian capital “is booming,” author Brett Forrest wrote. “It’s the biggest city in Europe, with more than 10 million people, and as the cultural and financial capital of the Continent’s eastern half, it is striving to live up to its status.” Mr. Forrest added that “Cranes twist across the skyline, great dust clouds billow from countless digs: roughly 80 million square feet of real estate will be built this year.”Yet the dream to become “Wall Street on the Moscow River” did not become reality. Foreign investors and financial wizards soon realized that the Moskva-Citi had the hardware — the buildings, but not the software — the rule of law. Undeterred, Mr. Putin’s planners filled these glittering cylinders, spirals and spikes with government ministries, state banks, crypto currency exchanges, and apartments. Today 250,000 young Muscovite professionals live and work there, served by two subway lines and a 10-lane highway. Plans include an express train to Moscow’s busiest airport, Sheremetyevo. Into this dream world crashed two Ukrainian drones early Sunday morning. Due to the hour, only a security guard was injured. Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, downplayed the attack, writing on Telegram: “The facades on two City office towers were slightly damaged.”Yet a cellphone video recorded by a woman tracking one drone shows a huge blast with orange flames and dozens of broken windows. The audio contains a massive boom and her wailing voice. It was the fourth time that drones hit Moscow this month. The attack on Moskva-Citi was blamed for sending the Russian ruble to a 3-week low Monday morning — 92.8 rubles to the dollar.“They got what they wanted,” a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman, Yuri Ihnat, said Sunday on national television. “Something is coming, and loudly,” he warned Russians. “There is no point in talking about peace in the Russian hinterland.” Sunday night, President Zelensky had a warning to Moscow’s cubicle mice, the silent middle class who look away while their leader destroys their neighbor.“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases,” Mr. Zelensky said in an address. “And this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process.” In response, Russia fired a ballistic missile Monday at Mr. Zelensky’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih. The rocket hit an apartment building, injuring 75 people and killing at least six people, including a woman and her 10-year-old daughter.

Putin’s Glass Houses

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