Switzerland?

That is indeed what I was thinking- and then?

What will the effect be on UK financial Markets, and Swiss ones.

Billions in property, mainly in London, is also owned by Russians, oligarchs or otherwise.

The effect on the markets is already clear.

That's the endgame, there's no "and then" Once we have the Russian billions here, they'll have to buy property for their mistresses which means that Switzerland will also get cheap gas to keep them warm and safe

Is there anything in the current set of measures that will bother in the slightest those oligarchs owning property and business interests in UK? All I can see is some banks being banned, and some people being banned to travel, don't think that would be much of an inconvenience to anyone at the top

Worse things "have come to light" but has anything changed in the big picture?

https://www.bbc.com/news/60348046

Yes, if they are among the people on the UK sanctions list they not only get a travel ban, but also asset freeze and ban from operating with UK banks. The same people are also on the US list also with an asset freeze. This means that even if they try to make a transfer from a non-sanctioned to a non-sanctioned bank from, say Russia to Switzerland, IF there's a UK or US intermediary bank their assets will be rejected or frozen.

Except that those people can easily escape such bans using other front-end companies set up in other countries/jurisdictions that it becomes impossible to chase where the money comes from - as the BBC article suggests. Many properties and businesses are already bought under such schemes using shady money, and the mechanisms in place are still largely ineffective, at least as far the news suggests... am I wrong?

No, you're not wrong. However, the OFAC is not to be messed with, these guys are able to bring whole mid-size country economies to their knees, individuals are easier to target.

A bank transfer irrelevant from where and to whom is always traceable. Once one of them is on the radar especially on the OFAC radar, transactions become increasingly difficult and the entities that could potentially deal with them even under "fake" identities with shell companies, etc will significantly increase their transaction cost. So it makes it 1)more difficult and significantly more costly 2) eventually shell companies with unclear ownership structures get caught as well. Intermediary banks don't want to play a risky game and annoy the OFAC so any suspicious transaction is likely to be investigated and reported. That is if those are SWIFT transactions, but then again, the Russian SPFS is not exactly a global system


Operating with normal banks in EUR or USD will be something they will most probably not do. Of course they can always move funds in China and buy property there, but then again, if you have a mistress and a house in Zurich moving to Shanghai to spend money ain't that attractive

Anyone remember this from around this time 8 years ago?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/vi...l-leaked-video

Maybe overall it will be a win-win for Ukraine and Russia: Ukraine manages to get Nordstream 2 further delayed/cancelled and also gets military supplies. Russia secures independence for the breakaway republics.

Europe is once again the main loser.

Is there anything known whether Ukraine intends to defend the non-Russian/rebel controlled parts of these "people's republics"? Or are they digging at the borders of those, essentially conceding this to Russia?

No, they explicitly singled out Donetsk and Luhansk when they announced the state of emergency. It's unfortunately a logical move as the Russians have already moved in units within these "republics" and the Ukrainians probably don't want to meet them there where they know they will be fighting against an army and against local guerilla soldiers.


"Across the territory of our country, apart from Donetsk and Luhansk, a state of emergency will be introduced," Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, told a press briefing Wednesday in Kyiv."

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/23/e...ntl/index.html

Not sure if this can be inferred from this move, weren't the two regions (at least the parts still under Ukraine control) already in some kind of emergency status?

In any case, giving up the remaining control in those two areas is a pretty big chunk of land, nearly the size of Switzerland...

And it includes, most importantly, Mariupol...

Meanwhile at an MOD meeting chaired by British defence secretary, Ben Wallace. Ben harks back to The Crimean War saying ''the Scots Guards kicked the backside of Tsar Nicholas I, in 1853 in Crimea”, adding "we can always do it again"


Video of the Ben Wallace meeting at the MOD

Unbelievable, and so so stupid and provocative

This is pathetic. You don't threaten someone with beating them militarily without committing troops, it sounds like a bar discussion after a few pints. It also weakens the perception of the UK, not sure what he was really after. The most annoying thing was actually the fact that they were laughing and cracking jokes. Poor performance

Unbelievably unprofessional. What a moron.

This is so irritating to watch and demonstrates an almost uniquely British foible of dining out on history whilst being oblivious to the situation in the here and now. What's most irksome is that he's speaking to army personnel, joking and expecting them to do a job when successive governments for the past 30 years (Conservative and Labour) have made cut after cut after cut to defense. Fact is, the British Army at its current strength would be little match to what Russia has to offer.

At least the UK still has some semblance of a defensive deterrent though, the same can't be said for the rest of Europe. The reality of the situation is that if Vladimir Putin wanted, he could start the march westward and wouldn't meet any meaningful resistance until he was halfway across Germany. The defensive situation is that bad!

I am no military expert so I don't know that. I would in fact like to hear something about this aspect - from occasionally listening to what guys like Gen Hertling (who is now a regular on CNN) have to say, I would it is not that bad.

Also, who knows how good the Russians really are. It is not like they have won any major wars lately. There were some reports how the Russian troops are behaving in Belarus, and it sounded unorganized, undersupplied and heavily into booze.

Rubbish. Recent encounters of Russian forces with US soldiers in Syria ended up with a humiliation for the Russians, in Georgia the performance of the Russians was so bad in terms of inter-unit communication that they were shooting down their own airforce, in Chechnya which was supposed to be a blietzkrig tank units in the city were ambushed and destroyed due to poor tactics and lack of intelligence, the 2014 conflict in Ukraine was so bad in terms of Russian performance, that Putin made the death toll a state secret

Russia is still a 20th century power relying on massive amounts of on-the-ground troops and huge numbers of hardware to overwhelm generally weaker neighbors, it is no match for the heavily sophisticated, interconnected and tech driven modern western armies. All this is irrelevant of course once he starts wrangling nuclear weapons, but in tactical clashes the Russian army is stronger on paper than on the ground.

One of the more entertaining pieces of news was when the newest and most sophisticated Russian tank, the T-14 Armata stalled during a parade on the Red Square.. Supposedly fixed, then some more problems showed up and the tank is still not in serial production.

In the everlasting words of Churchill, Russia is never as strong as it believes it is and never as weak as we believe.