Sooo this was such an intriguing idea that I did some research -- but reality appears to be more boring:
In a recent informal discussion I believe said OPP CEO remarked he had to give up the OpenAI board seat as his fiancée joining Anthropic creates a conflict of interest. Naively this is much more likely, and I think is much better supported by the timelines.
According to LinkedIn of the mentioned fiancée joined in already as VP in 2018 and was promoted to a probably more serious position in 2020, and her sibling was promoted to VP in 2019.
The Anthropic split occurred in June 2021.
A new board member (who is arguably very aligned to OPP) was inducted in September 2021, probably in place of OPP CEO.
It is unclear when OPP CEO exactly left the board, but I would guess sometime in 2021. This seem better explained by "conflict of interest with his fiancée joining-cofounding Anthropic" and OpenAI putting an other OPP-aligned board member in his place wouldn't make for very productive scheming.
I think the point was less about a problem with refugees (which should be solved in time with European coordination), maybe more that the whole invasion is "good news" for conservative parties, as most crises are.
A lot of people brought up sanctions, and they could indeed influence European economy/politics.
I would be curious about what sanctions in particular are likely to be implemented, and what are their implications - a major economic setback/energy prices soaring could radicalize European politics perhaps?
My guess would be that overall the whole event increases support for conservative/nationalist/populist parties - for example, even though Hungary's populist government was trying to appear to be balancing "between the West and Russia" (thus now being in an uncomfortable situation), I think they can probably actually spin it around to their advantage. (Perhaps even more so, if they can fearmonger about refugees.)
I have read through most of this post and some of the related discussion today. I just wanted to write that it was really interesting, and as far as I can tell, useful, to think through Paul's reasoning and forecasts about strategy-related questions.
In case he believes this is a good idea, I would be very glad to read through a longer, more comprehensive document describing his views on strategic considerations.