Question about the legality of seizing Russian oligarch property:
I’m not sympathetic to the oligarchs, of course. That being said, I would worry that this sets a bad legal precedent that personal-property rights vanish the moment your passport nation does something the rest of the world doesn’t like.
Let’s say there were a (hypothetical) nice, good, honorable Russian billionaire living in London, who owns mansions and private jets (that he paid for with honest cash.) Does the UK get to seize his stuff just because anti-Russian sentiment is high? It’s like the law is being tossed out the window.
The Russians haven’t conquered 10% of pre-invasion Ukraine.
A 10% loss of Russia’s initial invasion combat strength of 175,000–190,000 would suggest 17,500 to 19,000 dead and wounded enough to be put out of action.
(I work in regulatory compliance in European finance. I have to read this kind of stuff all day long, so I’ve got these bookmarked. It’s super exciting, believe me. Anyway.)
The first followed the initial annexation of Ukraine in 2014. The second followed the invasion, extending and enlarging the original program. There are many other documents like these listing officials in Belarus and laying out in excruciating detail exactly which financial institutions and transactions are barred, which manufactured products are prohibited, and on and on.
You will observe these are not undirected shotgun blasts, like you seem to imagine: “if you’re a Russian with more than ten million euros, fuck you!” It’s not that at all. The operative documents name each individual person specifically, and include a short biography and a description of how each one’s actions support Putin’s regime. These are the people whose yachts and airplanes are being seized.
There is, of course, some splash damage happening. If I’m your hypothetical Russian businessman in London, I am at zero risk of having my house, car, etc. seized. However, depending on how I’ve stashed my money, it’s possible I’ll have trouble keeping payments current on these assets, or covering tuition for Aleksei Junior’s next term at his exclusive rich-boy academy.
Unfortunate? Maybe. But it seems perverse to me to wail in outrage at this as some kind of “injustice” given the larger context
Addendum: This, incidentally, is why it usually takes a couple of days minimum to get a program like this enacted. There’s a crisis, and people scream at the government, “Do something!” And they’re furious that a huge institution can’t magic up a sanctions regime in a couple of hours.
But if you look at these documents, you’ll see they are lengthy and detailed. This stuff takes time to draft, review, and pass. You could do the slapdash version where you just drop the hammer on every rich Russian everywhere, but that would be “throwing the law out the window” indeed.
Happy to share. My day job is reading endless pages of this junk, I might as well put that knowledge to use.
Along similar lines, here’s an excellent and thorough summary of the full sanctions regimes enacted by the US, EU, and UK. Very dry reading, but recommended if you want to understand the scope of what is — and is not — affected.
I didn’t want to believe Free Speech could be completely shut down. There’s so many social media platforms and news sites. It didn’t seem possible to deny information to the public.
Apparently none of that matters in Russia. They’re rapidly returning to State controlled Media and shutting off access to social media. 1984 all over again.
Love current USA policy of sharing (most) of what they know with the general public:
Russia requests food assistance and other forms of aid from China during war in Ukraine
From CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis, Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler
Russia has requested both military and financial assistance from China amid the conflict in Ukraine.
Among the assistance Russia requested was pre-packaged, non-perishable military food kits, known in the US as “meal, ready-to-eat,” or MREs, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
I think the Ukr. are taking notes here…
also … China, can we pretty,pretty please get a full refund on your military tires …
Pffffftttt. Just put him in a room with one (Or both. Doesn’t matter!) of the Klitschko boys, for about 5 minutes. They’d take care of things, quickly.
China has already decided to provide Russia with economic and financial support during its war on Ukraine and is contemplating sending military supplies such as armed drones, US officials fear.
The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, laid out the US case against Russia’s invasion in an “intense” seven-hour meeting in Rome with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, pointing out that Moscow had feigned interest in diplomacy while preparing for invasion, and also that the Russian military was clearly showing signs of frailty.
“The key here is first to get China to recalculate and re-evaluate their position. We see no sign of that re-evaluation,” said another US official familiar with the discussions. “They’ve already decided that they’re going to provide economic and financial support, and they underscored that today. The question really is whether they will go further.”
Top of the Russian military shopping list in China are armed drones and various forms of ammunition, but any military transfers would not be straightforward.
“Both sides understand that they don’t share common systems, and so that makes it problematic,” the official said. CNN reported that the Russian military is also asking for ration packs, underlining its severe logistical problems in a more prolonged and tougher conflict than it anticipated.
