Russia has long been at odds with the United States over various issues, dating back many decades. Most of this has to do with Putin and his divisive world views. Putin, for example, strongly denies the evidence supporting global warming and climate change, and does his best to keep it out of mainstream Russian media, according to this article. Putin’s opinions on climate change mimic it as a joke, with claims as outlandish as global warming being good because it will reduce spending on fur coats and increase grain production. Critics of Putin claim he believes the evidence is fraudulent and has the intention of economically restricting industrial countries like Russia. Grist author Katie Herzog believes that this could have a lot to do with money, and the recently breaking Panama Papers could back this statement up. The Panama Papers link enormous amounts of money to close advisers and friends of Putin with no explanation for how they came up with the money. For instance, payments of up to $200 million to a cellist and totaling $2 billion to Putin’s inner circle, with very little reasoning behind them, have been found. While it’s merely speculation now, these payments very easily could have come from oil tycoons, and with Russia being the largest producer of oil in the world, this seems logical. And seeing as retreating ice caps open up new areas for oil exploration, this seems to be a solid connection.