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The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered

The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered wealth is really a brake on any ambitions that sanctions will work. You can't stop Putin's illicit private wealth (he's probably the richest man in the world) spreading through the West because it already did. There will be no co-ordinated all-party pushback against Russia in the USA or the UK, because big chunks of the political system of both are aware of the side on which their bread has been buttered for some time. And a lot of alt-right figures who have spent years saying that it's a lie that they have Russian support, but at the same time that Putin is a strong leader the West can learn from, are either going to go silent, obstruct or outright attack any sanctions measures. I don't just mean the obvious people. It's going to be very, very illuminating. And that is before you look at the soft power issue of, well, exported power in Europe.

Grustaf 5y ago
Aren't sanctions rather used to punish the people, until they rise up against the leader we want to get rid of?
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  In the specific case of Russia, and other examples in the last several decades, there have been specific attempts to direct most of the pain at the rich and powerful classes in the target countries. You could argue (somewhat cynically but perhaps correctly) that these represent the only demographic capable of pushing change.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Put more succinctly than I managed!
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Yes and no -- current sanctions against Russia are aimed at illicit wealth, and they likely still will be. Western governments will probably try not to use sanctions that primarily hurt the Russian people, because there is little hope that will work; Putin has spent a decade building an explicitly backward-looking, history-whitewashing kind of nationalism, and people might tire of that, sure, but he's also been very good at very publicly helping his opponents more fully experience the view from high windows. Remember Don Jr's meeting with the Russians that was supposedly about adoption? It was actually the Magnitsky Act the Russians really wanted to talk about (they want it gone). He said as much himself, and it's clear that even the people advising the Trump campaign were decidedly chilly on the idea of getting rid of it. Global Magnitsky legislation is why Russia is upping the ante. While I'm no scholar of it, I would expect the West to start with strengthened Magnitsky-type sanctions that prevent oligarchs from getting their money out before things go bad. Because it is the oligarchs who can uproot Putin most quickly. Putin is personally weak and isolated at this point -- clearly either clinically vulnerable or otherwise terrified of catching Covid, and distrustful of everyone around him. He's clearly acting more emotionally and less rationally. Sanctions that target -- or isolate -- the wealth of his closest circle of oligarchs are more likely to get somewhere, because they will gnaw away at his sense of invulnerability.
- sofixa 5y ago
  Yes, and that has never actually worked, so recently there's been a change of tactic and new sanctions mostly target rich and powerful people and organisations.
simonh 5y ago
This is often wildly overblown. Of 700 offshore companies found to own UK property, only 5% of them are controlled by Russians. Also of 94,000 properties registered as owned by foreign companies, only 4 were Russian. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60348046 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60348046 Bilateral trade is more significant, uk companies own over £23bn in assets in Russia, and total Russian investment in UK companies comes to £11bn, but let’s put that in context. Russia isn’t close to being in the to 10 contries that trade and invest in the UK.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  I said "London", not the UK as a whole. An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs. Something like a fifth or more of the £4.5bn of likely illicit -- literally unexplained -- wealth stored in residential property in London is from Russian oligarchs. It's a huge deal because it is targeted influence; big landlords back the tories. Any really serious attempt to hit that wealth will see pushback in private. https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-london-the-oligarchs-paradise/ https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-lon... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/oligarchs-and-unexplained-wealth-london-s-rich-russians-1.3438072 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/oligarchs-and-unexplai... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35757265 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35757265 This is a surprisingly pernicious influence on our politics. The current government have sat on a completed report into Russian influence in British politics for some time.
  - simonh 5y ago
    > An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs. Which is a shame because it would be better if they were put yo use, but it’s not a threat to the UK economy. No jobs depend on those properties. If there is a war and sanctions, we’ll, that’s why those oligarchs own those properties, to protect their wealth from Putin. They’re hardly going to sell up and move that wealth back to Russia, and if they did, so what? These sorts of Russian backup plan investments are always trotted out as this spooky big dependency we have in Russia. It’s utterly bogus, fear mongering founded on a fundamental misconception of how economics and finance actually work. Hardly surprising as it mostly comes from Marxists. We do have economic ties with Russia through UK companies doing business there, that’s where the risk is because that’s where the jobs and investments in jeopardy are.
ghostwriter 5y ago
> The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered wealth in what way exactly is it more extraordinary than all these alliances with middle-eastern "governments" (or rather ruling classes) that are known to commit atrocities of all sorts, including local invasions and coups?
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Well there's a lot of that money in London too. But a fifth of the total of unexplained wealth coming from Russia -- a country that is not an absolute monarchy, should not have a "ruling family", and is down in the mid-seventies in the rankings of GDP per capita -- is kind of extraordinary. This is not a wealthy small monarchy or a tiny little dictatorship, it's a large, poor country with an extraordinary, demonstrated level of kleptocratic exfiltration of wealth. A lot of it comes to London, and a lot of it comes to (mostly but not exclusively alt-right) populist, disruptive politicians and media figures across the West, through a variety of influence channels. We're going to find out who those people are; some of them will surprise us, and some of them will not. Finally, the topic is Ukraine, and unless I'm mistaken, kleptocratic middle-eastern monarchies aren't that interested in it.

Grustaf 5y ago

Aren't sanctions rather used to punish the people, until they rise up against the leader we want to get rid of?

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
In the specific case of Russia, and other examples in the last several decades, there have been specific attempts to direct most of the pain at the rich and powerful classes in the target countries. You could argue (somewhat cynically but perhaps correctly) that these represent the only demographic capable of pushing change.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Put more succinctly than I managed!
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Yes and no -- current sanctions against Russia are aimed at illicit wealth, and they likely still will be. Western governments will probably try not to use sanctions that primarily hurt the Russian people, because there is little hope that will work; Putin has spent a decade building an explicitly backward-looking, history-whitewashing kind of nationalism, and people might tire of that, sure, but he's also been very good at very publicly helping his opponents more fully experience the view from high windows. Remember Don Jr's meeting with the Russians that was supposedly about adoption? It was actually the Magnitsky Act the Russians really wanted to talk about (they want it gone). He said as much himself, and it's clear that even the people advising the Trump campaign were decidedly chilly on the idea of getting rid of it. Global Magnitsky legislation is why Russia is upping the ante. While I'm no scholar of it, I would expect the West to start with strengthened Magnitsky-type sanctions that prevent oligarchs from getting their money out before things go bad. Because it is the oligarchs who can uproot Putin most quickly. Putin is personally weak and isolated at this point -- clearly either clinically vulnerable or otherwise terrified of catching Covid, and distrustful of everyone around him. He's clearly acting more emotionally and less rationally. Sanctions that target -- or isolate -- the wealth of his closest circle of oligarchs are more likely to get somewhere, because they will gnaw away at his sense of invulnerability.
sofixa 5y ago
Yes, and that has never actually worked, so recently there's been a change of tactic and new sanctions mostly target rich and powerful people and organisations.

simonh 5y ago

This is often wildly overblown. Of 700 offshore companies found to own UK property, only 5% of them are controlled by Russians. Also of 94,000 properties registered as owned by foreign companies, only 4 were Russian. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60348046 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60348046 Bilateral trade is more significant, uk companies own over £23bn in assets in Russia, and total Russian investment in UK companies comes to £11bn, but let’s put that in context. Russia isn’t close to being in the to 10 contries that trade and invest in the UK.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I said "London", not the UK as a whole. An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs. Something like a fifth or more of the £4.5bn of likely illicit -- literally unexplained -- wealth stored in residential property in London is from Russian oligarchs. It's a huge deal because it is targeted influence; big landlords back the tories. Any really serious attempt to hit that wealth will see pushback in private. https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-london-the-oligarchs-paradise/ https://bylinetimes.com/2022/02/18/startling-facts-about-lon... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/oligarchs-and-unexplained-wealth-london-s-rich-russians-1.3438072 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/oligarchs-and-unexplai... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35757265 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35757265 This is a surprisingly pernicious influence on our politics. The current government have sat on a completed report into Russian influence in British politics for some time.
- simonh 5y ago
  > An enormous number of high-value residential properties in London lie empty because they exist only as a store of wealth for Russian oligarchs. Which is a shame because it would be better if they were put yo use, but it’s not a threat to the UK economy. No jobs depend on those properties. If there is a war and sanctions, we’ll, that’s why those oligarchs own those properties, to protect their wealth from Putin. They’re hardly going to sell up and move that wealth back to Russia, and if they did, so what? These sorts of Russian backup plan investments are always trotted out as this spooky big dependency we have in Russia. It’s utterly bogus, fear mongering founded on a fundamental misconception of how economics and finance actually work. Hardly surprising as it mostly comes from Marxists. We do have economic ties with Russia through UK companies doing business there, that’s where the risk is because that’s where the jobs and investments in jeopardy are.

ghostwriter 5y ago

> The extraordinary extent to which huge chunks of London and the political alt-right across Europe and the USA relies on Putin's (and other oligarchs') laundered wealth in what way exactly is it more extraordinary than all these alliances with middle-eastern "governments" (or rather ruling classes) that are known to commit atrocities of all sorts, including local invasions and coups?

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Well there's a lot of that money in London too. But a fifth of the total of unexplained wealth coming from Russia -- a country that is not an absolute monarchy, should not have a "ruling family", and is down in the mid-seventies in the rankings of GDP per capita -- is kind of extraordinary. This is not a wealthy small monarchy or a tiny little dictatorship, it's a large, poor country with an extraordinary, demonstrated level of kleptocratic exfiltration of wealth. A lot of it comes to London, and a lot of it comes to (mostly but not exclusively alt-right) populist, disruptive politicians and media figures across the West, through a variety of influence channels. We're going to find out who those people are; some of them will surprise us, and some of them will not. Finally, the topic is Ukraine, and unless I'm mistaken, kleptocratic middle-eastern monarchies aren't that interested in it.