Investment impact of Russia Ukraine crisis

Let’s play out a hypothetical – through some crazy circumstances and for reasons that don’t matter to the point, Putin himself flees to the USA with a treasure chest full of gold on one of his private jets.

Is it the feds “mugging” him to seize all of that and then deal with him? And if not, then how far removed from the direct decision maker can you get before sanctions for financial supporters are no longer appropriate?

All that aside, in this specific case – Andrei Skoch isn’t just some random billionaire with no skin in the game. He is a major player in the Russian Duma (aside from being the alleged head of a non-government criminal group)

Since the articles only highlight the seizing part, is there a second part where we “deal with him”?

Because I can’t imagine that Putin himself coming to the US with a chest of gold would merely have that gold seized.

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That is really beside the point.

Sure, let’s change my ridiculous hypothetical to be marginally less ridiculous and it is just a matter of the USA (or whatever other country) seizing Putin’s jet + contents that ended up within reach of law enforcement.

EDIT: the question is really about whether and under what limitations one agrees that sanctions/seizures are legitimate.

In this case, we’re talking about state-level actors, not some random businessman who was minding his own business and just happens to be a wealthy guy from a country that is behaving badly.

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Yet the question remains, are we in some way 'dealing with" this person (or trying to, if that person isnt physically here at the moment)? Because seizures are typically in conjunction with pursuing suspected crimes, which is what distinguishes them from a commonplace mugging. If we’re not pursuing a related crime, the seizure is essentially just a government-endorsed mugging. Regardless of who it may involve.

So it isnt beside the point, it is a very central detail to the point.

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Meanwhile, I’m sure at least 1/3 of the arms we ship to Ukraine actually make it to the front line fighters without being sold on the black market. CBS reported that but then censored their documentary so we wouldn’t know most of our weapons budget isn’t going where it’s supposed to.

Who was that crazy Senator who wanted some accountability for our $50B blowout Ukrainian giveaway? Some Russian stooge, clearly.

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Your comment on this seems like a pretty significant distortion of what is quoted in the article.

They said, back in April, that “only around 30% of aid was reaching the front lines

That is not remotely the same thing as saying that is is missing, unaccounted for, or sold on the black market - that is just acknowledging that, at that time, they didn’t commit it all to the front immediately, probably for a variety of reasons.

Well that article was more about pressuring the media to not report on negative issues / corruption in Ukraine. Here’s the updated article

Which still talks about corruption, infighting between Ukrainian groups for taking aid supplies, and how the 30% (now perhaps a bit higher) figure referred to aid getting to “its final destination”, which does sound like getting stolen or lost or blown up rather than never being intended for the front lines. Judge for yourself.

“There are like power lords, oligarchs, political players,” Ohman said in April, describing the corruption and bureaucracy he had to work around…

A combination of Ukraine’s constantly shifting front lines with its largely volunteer and paramilitary forces has made delivery of the military aid difficult for those attempting to navigate the dangerous supply lines to their destination. Some have raised concerns about weapons falling into Ukraine’s black market, which has thrived on corruption since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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That article really doesn’t say what you’re suggesting, overall.

It is primarily discussing the risks related to accounting for things if Ukraine loses and becomes a failed state. It isn’t pointing to things being actively misused.

Turns out $5B is only a month’s shortfall for the Ukraine government.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-asks-for-more-imf-help-11659991339?tpl=br

Russia’s war on Ukraine since February has inflicted a heavy economic toll. Ukrainian officials estimate that the economy will shrink by around 30% this year, while tax revenues cover only 30% to 40% of its spending needs, which include heavy military expenditures.

The finance ministry in Kyiv has estimated its financing shortfall stands at roughly $5 billion a month. Promised grants and loans from Ukraine’s Western supporters, particularly those from the EU, haven’t been arriving fast enough to cover the gap, leaving Kyiv dependent on the country’s central bank printing money and buying government bonds. Ukrainian officials fear that excessive reliance on central bank money-printing could further push up inflation, which is already over 20%.

Ukraine is also trying to secure a two-year payment standstill on dollar- and euro-denominated government bonds with a combined face value of nearly $20 billion. Its government bonds trade at around 20 cents on the dollar, a sign that investors are expecting the country to default.

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Targeted assassinations in Russia.

https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/1561110753792458754?t=llmlF-hblPIoU8DhMHrf0Q&s=33

Dugin and his daughter had been sanctioned by the UK and US for acting to destabilise Ukraine.

The blast occurred shortly after Dugina left the “Tradition” cultural festival at an estate where her father had given a lecture. The two were expected to leave together but instead got in different cars, a friend said. Five minutes later, a bomb exploded in the car Dugina was driving, killing her immediately.

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Russian army incompetence and corruption, as recounted by a solider. They would have won a long time ago with a decent army.

https://mobile.twitter.com/chriso_wiki/status/1560022545356791810?s=21&t=0oVyJ-yxG0sCW62T374BZg

Meanwhile, Germany is burning coal and un-shutdown their nuke plants since Nord1 is shut down again “for maintenance”. Boy, when the war is over, those gas pipelines will be the best maintained ones on the continent.

I wonder how that fateful decision came to be. What reason did he have to drive a different car and leave his daughter to drive his own car? Talk about serendipity.

More on her fathers reaction to this and how the Russian reaction might go given the proximity of the assassination to Moscow, and due to their suspicion of Ukrainian secret service and NATO in the bombing, none of it good.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/08/21/fly-like-an-eagle-darya-dugina/

Darya Dugina, 30, daughter of Alexander Dugin, a smart, strong, ebullient, enterprising young woman, whom I met in Moscow and had the honor to cherish as a friend, has been brutally murdered.

What is already known is that Alexander Dugin was a target on the Myrotvorets list. Myrotvorets stands for a Center for Research of Signs of Crimes against the National Security of Ukraine.

Drawing from the evidence – from the increased attacks on Crimea to the attempts to provoke a nuclear catastrophe in Zaporozhye – [her father] correctly concludes that the NATO sphere has “decided to stand on the other end to the end. They can be understood: Russia actually (and this is not propaganda) challenged the West as a civilization.”

The conclusion is stark: “So we have to go all the way”. That ties in with what Putin himself asserted: “We haven’t really started anything yet.” Dugin: “Now we have to start.”

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Did you expect Moscow to say anything different?

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What a total load of BS.

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What? That the father is pissed his daughter was killed, and channels his position of thought leadership in the upper ranks of Russian society into further aggression against those (Ukraine / the West) he views as responsible for her death? That seems entirely reasonable.

My point isn’t to take a view on the event, but that its consequences of missing the father and hitting the daughter likely increases the risks of military escalation.

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Or maybe Putin wanted another excuse to escalate / unite the people behind him / etc, and arranged the car bomb for the daughter.

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I think that’s implausible without also having been willing to kill the father, who seems very pro war and pro Russian empire already. I’m sure there are enough war crimes or whatever to play up if you want more pro war propaganda generally.

As expected, she’s being made into a martyr by the Russian press, and her funeral was a chance for many senior politicians to call on increasing the stakes and winning the war in Ukraine.

Likewise, the KGB blames the “Ukrainian regime” for the killing

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I think that’s implausible without also having been willing to kill the father, who seems very pro war and pro Russian empire already.

Putin is willing to kill pretty much anyone if he thinks it furthers his goals.

But in this case Occam’s Razor would pretty clearly be the explanation of the underground group within Russia orchestrating the attack, as despite “popularity”, there are plenty of people in Russia that hate Putin’s regime and hate the current war.

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Everyone wants to win, no peace on the horizon

ZELENSKIY, ON HOW UKRAINE SEES WAR ENDING, SAYS: “WE USED TO SAY PEACE. NOW WE SAY: VICTORY”

ZELENSKIY SAYS UKRAINE WILL RECAPTURE EASTERN REGION OF DONBAS AND CRIMEA - WHATEVER THE PATH TO THAT WILL BE