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Hollow Sanctions
Why these supposed weapons against Putin’s aggression are intentionally worthless
We’ve all read the breathless newspaper headlines and heard the earnest anchors talking to camera. Although NATO remains utterly passive as Ukraine is reduced to a corpse-strewn rubble, never fear: we’ve imposed sanctions! All those dead Ukrainians haven’t been slaughtered in vain!
We in the complacent self-indulgent West can continue to cram McSlop down our throats and swill our designer coffees, secure in the knowledge that our “leaders” have imposed severe sanctions on Russia that will, perhaps one day, who knows? — have some sort of minor effect.
Except, as is so often the case, the reality is quite different.
Let’s take a look at the easiest possible set of sanctions: the confiscation of assets accrued by Putin’s nearest and dearest, known as the силовики. These are the former FSB thugs and goons who have collectively looted the Russian state over the last twenty years and who now control every aspect of Russian economic life. Many of these people have bought prominent assets in the West, including sports teams, enormous mansions, huge luxury yachts, and private jets. Surely it ought to be easy to seize these physical objects and thus deprive Putin’s associates of a tiny fraction of their wealth?
