A hidden web of power revealed itself to Internet users in early 2022. Following a brutal government crackdown in Kazakhstan in January, anyone using open-source flight-tracking websites could watch kleptocratic elites flee the country on private jets.
A little more than a month later, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought a new spectacle: social media users were able to track various oligarchs’ superyachts as they jumped from port to port to evade Western sanctions. These feeds captured a national security problem in near real time: In Eurasia and beyond, kleptocratic elites with deep ties to the West were able to move themselves and their assets freely despite a host of speeches by senior officials, sanctions, and structures designed to stop them.
