At Berkshire Hathaway’s 2006 annual meeting, Warren Buffett was asked what it would take for him to invest in Russia.

He answered with a story.

Years earlier, Berkshire had inherited an oil operation in Siberia through its investment in Salomon.

They drilled the wells.

And while the money was flowing into Russia, Buffett said, they were welcome.

But when it came time to take the oil out, suddenly the Russians “weren’t quite as friendly.”

“In fact, it was really kind of extreme what took place with us,” Buffett said.

Buffett even said Berkshire sent people to retrieve equipment from the operation.

And the message they received was essentially that if they came for the equipment, neither the equipment nor the people might get out.

“So we understood the situation,” Buffett said.

He concluded the story by telling shareholders it was difficult to have confidence in Russia’s treatment of capital, particularly foreign capital.

Two decades later, the Buffett family is confronting Russia again.

But this time, it is Warren Buffett’s son Howard Buffett.

Howard Buffett’s foundation has committed approximately $1.1 billion to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began in 2022.

And much of that money is going into something the Buffetts understand particularly well.

Productive assets.

Howard Buffett is a farmer himself.

His foundation has spent more than $53 million on agricultural machinery for Ukraine.

The foundation is also financing demining, generators, medical care, prosthetics, school kitchens, and other infrastructure.

There is something remarkable about the connection, and it became even more interesting this month.

On September 18, Warren Buffett became chairman emeritus of Berkshire Hathaway after more than six decades at the top.

His son Howard Buffett was elected chairman.

Howard is now chairman of the massive conglomerate his father spent a lifetime building.

At the same time, he has become one of the most significant private supporters of Ukraine.

Howard has argued that Western countries should support Ukraine until Russia is defeated, rather than simply for “as long as it takes.”

And there is another enormous responsibility coming.

Warren Buffett intends for Howard and his two siblings to oversee the distribution of most of his remaining fortune.

That fortune is still worth roughly $140 billion, with Howard himself recently acknowledging that investment growth could make the eventual amount considerably larger.

That makes Howard Buffett’s work in Ukraine worth watching.

But it also raises an interesting question about the economic system that created the Buffett fortune in the first place.

Warren Buffett has talked about this himself.

He once explained it using farmers.

Go back to 1800, Buffett said, when roughly 80% of Americans were farmers.

If one person was the best farmer in Omaha and another was the worst, Buffett estimated that the difference in their economic value might have been about two-to-one.

Modern capitalism changed that.

Technology allows exceptional talent in certain fields to reach millions or even billions of people.

The rewards can become enormous.

Buffett’s point was not that capitalism had failed.

Quite the opposite.

He has repeatedly argued that the market system is extraordinarily good at producing more wealth.

But he has also acknowledged that it can produce enormous differences in who receives that wealth.

The Buffett family may now be one of the most extraordinary examples of both sides of that system.

Warren Buffett built one of the largest private fortunes in history through American capitalism.

That fortune became so large that his son can now back a country fighting one of the world’s largest military powers.

There is something almost surreal about that.

A private fortune became large enough that one family can operate, in some respects, on the scale of governments.

You could call it settling an old score.

But it is also a remarkable demonstration of just how much economic power modern capitalism can concentrate in the hands of one man.