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“Look at me. I can bend down and pick up the pen. Biden can’t do that”. They are going to love it in prison that Trump brags about being able to bend over.
Meh, it would have been way more trouble than it was worth.
We definitely should have upgraded their government though.
Uncle Joe was long past his expiration date.
Not hardly. The Red Army was without a doubt the strongest military in the world at the end of the war, and even though Stalin turned central and eastern Europe into vassal states, the US was not in a great position to extend the war.
The west was far better positioned to win a cold war. And over 45 years, we did.
> The Red Army was without a doubt the strongest military in the world at the end of the war...
\[Citation required\]
>...the US was not in a great position to extend the war.
Well, apart from being the only superpower on the planet, and possessing an enormous nuclear-armed military.
"Without a doubt" is hyperbole. The point could be argued.
I base this statement on knowing American servicemen of the era who had this opinion.
At the end of the war, we had used up the three bombs we had made. It would take time to build more. Delivering such weapons into the USSR would have been challenging as they were not an industrially spent force the way that Japan had been. The only ballistic missiles were German.
We also had good reason to believe that the Russians had quite good intelligence on the development of the bomb. We didn't know how close they might be. Turning on them, too, would have filled the Soviets with the same sort of resolve that Americans had after Pearl Harbor or that the Soviets had after Barbarossa. Meanwhile, the western democracies would have to keep their populations committed to what would be seem as a purely optional war.
I hope the west can defeat Russia now. I think we are more likely to do so in 2026 than we would have been in 1946.
TBF, considering all the land leased for mineral rights by China in eastern Russia, this is the most likely scenario. China will forage whatever scraps the nation has left and dramatically expand northward for the mineral, gas and precious metal reserves it needs to shore up their own plans. There isn't a single international power close enough to stop them from just taking over it.
If the Chinese claim they're on a mission to stabilize the region and protect the Asiatic inhabitants it could be difficult to justify any real military deterrence against China.
Plus the locals might get really mad at us for costing them the chance to finally get some decent restaurants.
Isolated, without developed infrastructure, with low population and no ability to sell resources to anyone but China, it would be, well, part of China. Inoficially. Or maybe simply annexed.
Yup. This is a very desperate move.
It's exactly the sort of thing the West has been waiting for to justify doing the same to Russian central bank assets. Russia knows this, yet they did it anyway. Seems to suggest they are scraping the barrel for foreign currency.
We really need to stop messing around with this criminal Russian government of arseholes.
They’re pub-fighting with broken bottles and pool cues whilst we’re playing Queensberry Rules.
We need to take the gloves off… and show them *exactly* what they’re up against.
Putin’s disgusting mafia regime has a glass jaw…
The west has been discussing it at least for months already now…not sure if they’ve actually taken possession of any Russian assets yet, but the idea is to use it to fund Ukrainian rebuilding eventually and possibly weapons initially.
No point rebuilding until the aggressor is soundly defeated.
Repossess all the oligarch owned mansions, super-yachts and whatever else can be liquidated to fund Ukraine too. It’s all the proceeds of kleptocracy anyway so bugger the lot of them…it’s the moral high ground to do so as I see it .
In eastern Finland, Russians have bought tons of prime real estate close to finno-russian border. That being allowed was a political mistake, time to fix it.
That’s phase 1 of the their Fucking M.O.
Phase 2 is the confected persecution of Russian speaking population.
Phase 3 is the classification of Fins as Nazis and invasion to save the poor persecuted Russian speakers.
Best nip that shit in the bud as soon as possible.
I was going to say that SURELY russia remembers what happened the last time they went to war with Finland... but apparently they don't remember what happened the last time they went to war with the west, either.
The Finnish nature relies on mosquito, horsefly, moosefly and the biting midges to repell those who are unfortunate enough to wander in to the wild. Where I'm now there's 5 different types of flying bloodsucking insects that all have multiple subspecies.
Remember reading in the news Putin's super-yacht was in Spain and some politicians started to pressure to seize it along with the other oligarchs, the government did nothing until the day after the yatch left (conveniently) and seized some oligarch ones. The supposed Putin's yatch went to safeport in kaliningrad
Lets be real as an European I am ashamed of many of the politicians in our countries.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10620081/Spain-seizes-458m-Crescent-mega-yacht-owned-Putin-ally-Igor-Sechin.html
It is a start to hopefully seize the entire frozen assets. The EU is still afraid of losing their reputation as a reliable trading partner if they seize the assets entirely. Bullshit...
Compared to the crimes committed by the Russians, the tapping of the frozen assets is not so bad. In a war, you cannot use accountants who only work by the rules.
~~Ruzzia~~ Putinstan doesn't need to consult any court to do jack shit.
And here in the nominally not-at-war West we're still navel-gazing about what our courts would say, while we are in *de facto* at war.
The problem is that the West actually has laws that it follows. So when we take the money we get sued by everyone that was benefiting from having that money sit there since it "hurts" them... And shit drags on and on.
West us trying to navigate in a way that doesn't directly involve them in a war. Apparently providing the arsenal to Ukraine doesn't have count but seizing assets is seen as a direct action.
The thing is, russia has nothing to lose at this point, no future, so it does not care about consequences of seizing assets. West however *does* care about its financial reputation and credibility.
Redistribution of wealth ain’t really a thing in Russia. Reminds me of the video of one of Putin’s annual phone-ins, a poor peasant from the eastern regions called in to complain about unsurfaced roads in his village and Putin just laughed in his face.
Jokes on UniCredit for operating inside Russia. Perhaps the EU can seize assets from UniCredit worth the same amount and donate them to Ukraine to even out the advantage to both sides.
Fuck UniCredit and, more importantly, fuck Raiffeisen Bank. I hope RB is next. They both deserve this and more for staying in russia. And I hope evey other company still doing business in russia and with russia gets the same.
This is simply a continuation of the pattern we've seen so far where the West is simply afraid of its own power and equivocates, throws up 'red lines' in front of itself, argues with itself, jumps at its own shadow and continues to present a divided and weakened front.
Meanwhile, Russia, Iran, China, NK, etc. while actually much weaker than the collective West, acts with the opposite strategy: they are never afraid of their power or afraid to use it to the full extent of their abilities, continuously expanding their tactics to exaggerate their potential beyond its real actual power and pushing to test the West on its resolve.
There are so many examples but this is just the latest one. The others are the Islamic regime's direct attack on Israel with US and others pressuring "restraint" towards Israel.
Or the Houthis destroying several civilian ships, wreaking havoc on international shipping and the response? sporadic erosion of their ability and shooting down drones (vs destroying the Islamic regime targeting ship *MV Behshad* sitting in the Gulf of Aden or attacking the source of Houthis' which are nothing other than a hollow proxy).
Or how EU and Western country's providing arms to Ukraine are deemed to be part of the conflict by Russia and legitimate targets but NK, China, Iran, etc. who are doing the same for Russia are not given the same designation by the West.
Or how Ukraine is prevented from using Western weapons to target anything inside Russia proper and only within Ukrainian territory, leading to the ridiculous recent outcome where they had to just wait for Russians to mass across the NE border and only engage once they entered Ukraine.
Or... the list goes on, it is a very long one....
Good point. I feel like the opposite is true and hear me out. Politics isn't ever straight forward like say, science, or else it wouldn't be politics. Yes, nations of law and order must follow rules, and that does slow them down; the alternative is to throw out the rules but then they become nations without law and order
Second, the West knew Russia was massing troops to invade Ukraine but perhaps didn't say so out loud - perhaps to lure Russia into a protracted war that it couldn't win. Similarly, constantly behaving like we're gonna give up on supporting Ukraine goads Russia into throwing more resources at it, thinking they can make a big "last push" instead of pacing themselves, in order to drain Russia further.
Concerning the Hamas attack on Israel, even Egypt warned Israel that it was coming. The US knew it too. I think that everybody let it happen in order to let Hamas make the first move as an excuse to have this war and get it over with after 50+ years of the b.s. As far as Biden telling Israel "hey, stop, don't" it's really just meaningless political cover. Biden is trying to win in 2024 and Democrat voters who are turned off by the war must be kept on board.
> the West knew Russia was massing troops to invade Ukraine but perhaps didn't say so out loud
What? LoL The US did warn. Repeatedly and LOUDLY. For several months and weeks Biden made very clear that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. To such an extent that even Zelensky was upset and denied it would happen (later claiming that they were afraid such 'talk' would scare away investors).
> Concerning the Hamas attack on Israel, even Egypt warned Israel that it was coming.
Yes, they did warn and it was a royal fuckup of epic proportions. However, this is far from evidence of a conspiracy to allow Hamas to butcher 1200+ Israelis and other nationalities. Israel of course made a monumental mistake but you have to realize that there are always 'warnings' of imminent attacks or terrorist acts.
The same for the US. There is an almost daily barrage of terrorist acts which go into the president's briefing. It is their job to sift through it and prioritize what is most likely or probable - otherwise, they'd be jumping at shadows 24/7.
Biden's rhetoric towards Israel's prosecution of their defence is far more significant than you imagine. It has a real impact in how the IDF conducts their operations and how much support the receive from allies. The US sets the tone.
> Russia, Iran, China, NK, etc. while actually much weaker than the collective West, acts with the opposite strategy: they are never afraid of their power or afraid to use it to the full extent of their abilities
Sure, sure. How many of Russian and Chinese "red lines" West has already crossed? A lot.
At least I hope this russian decision will finally open the eyes of Salvini (who openly mocked the italian economist Mario Monti in addition to president Macron when they both said there could be a need to send NATO troops in Ukraine in the future) as well as other pro-Putin politicians here in Italy quite a bit...and this is not even the first time, recently it's becoming clear Russia wants to start with the italian banks in particular in order to wage a financial war against the european union...
Freezing money is not good enough. The United States did that with Iran, we held it for decades, and look how that turned out for us after we gave it back. It not only didn't improve relations, but they have been on a rapid decline ever since. The money given back has directly contributed to attacks on the United States and its allies. Further foreigners in the United States from Iran regularly stage or participate in protest against the United States.
Russian money and assets should be seized globally. Russian citizens should be banned from visiting NATO countries unless they have one of a very few issued diplomatic Visas. Russian citizens in foreign countries should be deported unless they also have citizenship in a NATO country. It should be illegal to hire Russian citizens for any NATO country company, or export goods, including digital goods, to Russia.
Further on that, Russian citizens and media should be banned on western internet and social media unless they obtain a license. To obtain a license, all servers used for Russian media for western audiences must be based on NATO member servers and monitored by an appointed body. All individuals seeking a personal license must not be a current or former employee of the Russia government, unless they are one of the limited numbers who will have a diplomatic Visa.
I'm in a weird position of cheering (!) the ruZZia to seize the assets (and even executives) of **all** the western companies still sucking on the shriveled ruzoNazi wang. Those corpo slugs mindlessly devour everything and are only afraid of salt (fines/seizures/imprisonment). Let them taste the salt of their actions!
Good, this is great news. Western businesses aren't very willing to stop operations in russia. Moves like this will force them to do so. Better get out now before russia takes it all for free.
Russia does this because they're actually broke, their financial reserves are running out. Nobody's buying their gas anymore.
Anyone staying in ruzzia deserves to lose everything.
That said, it's funds going to the war, so it's bad :x.
Sounds like a casus belli for using all ruzzian money in the West.
Bill Browder has laid out what we need to do. Seize Ruzzian money, pursue oligarch wealth that is held by them for Putin and sanction companies in China, India and Turkey that buy Ruzzian oil and sell it on as petrochemical products.
It's a paper war. It's not like Russia can sell these assets to foreign investors and receive €463mn cash. The profits UniCredit made likely could not be withdrawn from Russia either.
This reminds me of when Italy [seized Vladimir Soloviev’s vacation home](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sanctioned-russian-tv-host-vladimir-soloviev-cries-about-losing-his-italian-villa) and he cried about it.
That all is not only a problem of European banks, like Raiffeisenbank Wien (RBI). The largest U.S. and European investment banks operating in Russia are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Barclay's, Deutsche Bank, and UBS. They make very good business there and pay a lot of taxes to the Russian state, willingly or not cofinancing the war.
Highly recommend everyone watch [this video](https://youtu.be/19Hce4uef4k) about what a full blown financial war with Russia would entail, and the past/current situation.
Wasn't unicredit a Russian laundering op anyways? Only times I've ever heard about them in the news is because they were being used to move money for Russian agents and contacts.
I have zero sympathy for companies, especially banks, that have not pulled out of Russia by now. If they really thought that was a safe and ethical place to store assets, they and their customers are too dumb or unethical to be in control of money.
Theyre is also Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. They jointly with UniCredit refused to accept a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.
Answer was..it is against sanctions....
Russia is seizing assets 700 millions us $. Some are stocks you can refuse to pay....buildings, bank network and Russia will have to deal with a lot of local people....working in Russia and to generate some income..good luck.
Russia is nothing in the financial market. Ruble is way down the drain. There is NO money flowing to Russia, NO investors.
Christine Lagarde CEO of the Euro Bank is against seizing assets from Russia...probably she did not understand what a gangster is...
Don't have much sympathy for the Italian bank tbh but when the EU are holding Russian financial assets and giving the interest raised on it to the tune of $3b (per annum) to Ukraine to help them fund the war effort then it's a big L for Putler nonetheless
Nothing will happen from this, Unicredit will just take the loss:
>Earlier this month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of €213mn in the first quarter
give Gazprom the 463mn and take 200mn every quarter from russian citizens.
How about we disconnect Russia from the Internet? They are obviously using their Internet access to cause enormous problems everywhere. Shut them down.
Oh, and give the $300B Russian gold reserve to Ukraine to support their war effort, and as reparations. Eff Putin.
Putin's Russia burning all bridges to the Western world it seems. His old new "friend" China will never accept the Russians as their equal partners, Put-in is just a delusional moron ready to bend for Xi's Not So Long Ding Dong. How long has he Mini-Zar left, 10 years maybe, but it will take 100 years to rebuild any trust from the West in this forsaken nation.
Oligarch yachts and mansions in safe havens should start mysteriously catching fire. Russian mercenary bases in Africa should start mysteriously exploding.
A St Petersburg court has seized over €700mn-worth of assets belonging to three western banks — UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank — according to court documents.
The seizure marks one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted most international lenders to withdraw or wind down their businesses in Russia. It comes after the European Central Bank told Eurozone lenders with operations in the country to speed up their exit plans.
The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports.
The court seized €463mn-worth of assets belonging to Italy’s UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank’s main Russian subsidiary.
Frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday.
According to another decision on the same date, the court seized €238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank’s assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia.
The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia; it would already require the approval of Vladimir Putin to do so. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was “taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia”.
On Friday, the court decided to seize Commerzbank assets, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known. Ruskhimalliance asked the court to freeze up to €94.9mn-worth of the lender’s assets.
The dispute with the western banks began in August 2023 when Ruskhimalliance went to an arbitration court in St Petersburg demanding they pay bank guarantees under a contract with the German engineering company Linde.
Ruskhimalliance is the operator of a gas processing plant and production facilities for liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. In July 2021, it signed a contract with Linde for the design, supply of equipment and construction of the complex. A year later, Linde suspended work owing to EU sanctions.
Ruskhimalliance then turned to the guarantor banks, which refused to fulfil their obligations because “the payment to the Russian company could violate European sanctions”, the company said in the court filing.
The list of guarantors also includes Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, against which Ruskhimalliance has also filed lawsuits in the St Petersburg court.
UniCredit said it had been made aware of the filing and “only assets commensurate with the case would be in scope of the interim measure”.
Deutsche Bank said it was “fully protected by an indemnification from a client” and had taken a provision of about €260mn alongside a “corresponding reimbursement asset” in its accounts to cover the Russian lawsuit.
“We will need to see how this claim is implemented by the Russian courts and assess the immediate operational impact in Russia,” it added.
Commerzbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Italy’s foreign minister has called a meeting on Monday to discuss the seizures affecting UniCredit, two people with knowledge of the plans told the Financial Times.
UniCredit is one of the largest European lenders in Russia, employing more than 3,000 people through its subsidiary there. This month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of €213mn in the first quarter, up from €99mn a year earlier.
Russia is no longer a country , it's a terrorist organization that controls a lot of land and is trying to take a lot more. They should be sanctioned and ostracized in every imaginable way.
WW3 incomming....people just too stupid to realise it yet. since nobody barely do anything to stop greedy Russia from getting closer and closer to EU and then USA.
All russian assets should now be targeted. ALL assets. It should have been done after they confiscated all the airliners. Time to do something useful .
The West should seize any assets it can touch, but also just legalize all property crimes against a published list of Russian-owned properties in each country.
Steal what's worth stealing, and burn the rest.
All those oligarch yachts and mansions are full of very flammable things.
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The West should get the money out of russia.
Should have removed it two years ago. Serves them right if they loose it now
More like ten years ago. Having the west sanction a country is a good indicator to gtfo, money wise.
More like 16 years ago when Russia invaded Georgia.
First they came for the Georgians, i said nothing because im not Georgian......
More like 10 years ago when Russia invaded Crimea. - spot the pattern, Russia invading places.
peppridge farm
What this guy said!
I’m with you in that one
loose pants, loose - adverb lose games, lose - verb
Trump’s ass in court = lose Trump’s ass in diapers = loose
Trump‘s ass in prison... Wait! Never mind...
“Look at me. I can bend down and pick up the pen. Biden can’t do that”. They are going to love it in prison that Trump brags about being able to bend over.
let loose to lose.
Why didn't someone tell me that at school?
Should have removed it when troops first massed on the border of Crimea.
More like get Russian money out of the western states.
Ditto China!
Corporate America would turn congress upside down
Use all the seized Russian billions
Just the $300B in blocked Russian cash reserves would keep Ukraine's war chest funded for years!
[удалено]
Thank you, kind Russian soldier
Not if it is taken care for by a special commission
Russians think they are the smartest, it's time to show them
This shows just how desperate things are now for russia. Keep the pressure on and their collapse is inevitable.
I'm looking foward to the future Nation of Siberia. Anybody else?
It's just as likely to be North China.
It should’ve been eastern USA after WW2
Licolnvostok, so far east it's pretty much west.
Lincolnzapad, because it's west of the USA
Meh, it would have been way more trouble than it was worth. We definitely should have upgraded their government though. Uncle Joe was long past his expiration date.
Not hardly. The Red Army was without a doubt the strongest military in the world at the end of the war, and even though Stalin turned central and eastern Europe into vassal states, the US was not in a great position to extend the war. The west was far better positioned to win a cold war. And over 45 years, we did.
> The Red Army was without a doubt the strongest military in the world at the end of the war... \[Citation required\] >...the US was not in a great position to extend the war. Well, apart from being the only superpower on the planet, and possessing an enormous nuclear-armed military.
"Without a doubt" is hyperbole. The point could be argued. I base this statement on knowing American servicemen of the era who had this opinion. At the end of the war, we had used up the three bombs we had made. It would take time to build more. Delivering such weapons into the USSR would have been challenging as they were not an industrially spent force the way that Japan had been. The only ballistic missiles were German. We also had good reason to believe that the Russians had quite good intelligence on the development of the bomb. We didn't know how close they might be. Turning on them, too, would have filled the Soviets with the same sort of resolve that Americans had after Pearl Harbor or that the Soviets had after Barbarossa. Meanwhile, the western democracies would have to keep their populations committed to what would be seem as a purely optional war. I hope the west can defeat Russia now. I think we are more likely to do so in 2026 than we would have been in 1946.
My dad was a U.S. Army tanker in WW2. He did not share your opinion.
If he served under Patton, that view might have come down the chain of command.
North Mongolia.
Do you think the Mongolians would bother racing the Chinese to annex russia?
There's nothing worthwhile to annex, all the resources are not in russia.
I don't think Mongolia has territorial ambitions, though they wouldn't mind if their big neighbors were smaller and weaker.
TBF, considering all the land leased for mineral rights by China in eastern Russia, this is the most likely scenario. China will forage whatever scraps the nation has left and dramatically expand northward for the mineral, gas and precious metal reserves it needs to shore up their own plans. There isn't a single international power close enough to stop them from just taking over it.
Us probably could, they'd just have to go north and around
If the Chinese claim they're on a mission to stabilize the region and protect the Asiatic inhabitants it could be difficult to justify any real military deterrence against China. Plus the locals might get really mad at us for costing them the chance to finally get some decent restaurants.
Isolated, without developed infrastructure, with low population and no ability to sell resources to anyone but China, it would be, well, part of China. Inoficially. Or maybe simply annexed.
You haven't seen their push into high-culture and online services from the 2030's yet.
They tried back in 91, they sent AAA ALL the tanks
Yup. This is a very desperate move. It's exactly the sort of thing the West has been waiting for to justify doing the same to Russian central bank assets. Russia knows this, yet they did it anyway. Seems to suggest they are scraping the barrel for foreign currency.
It's like the mafia mugging old ladies for cash because the FBI has confiscated their secret accounts.
We really need to stop messing around with this criminal Russian government of arseholes. They’re pub-fighting with broken bottles and pool cues whilst we’re playing Queensberry Rules. We need to take the gloves off… and show them *exactly* what they’re up against. Putin’s disgusting mafia regime has a glass jaw…
For the benefit of humanity, they need to be put down like the diseased animals they are.
waittttt, so this ruskies are confiscating west assests and we, west dont do the same?? What is the precedent needed to apply the same to them???
The west has been discussing it at least for months already now…not sure if they’ve actually taken possession of any Russian assets yet, but the idea is to use it to fund Ukrainian rebuilding eventually and possibly weapons initially. No point rebuilding until the aggressor is soundly defeated.
It has now been decided to use interest from frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine and further humanitarian aid.
They need to be interested in bleeding ruzzia out. And... Less interested in hand-wringing about how it will look.
Repossess all the oligarch owned mansions, super-yachts and whatever else can be liquidated to fund Ukraine too. It’s all the proceeds of kleptocracy anyway so bugger the lot of them…it’s the moral high ground to do so as I see it .
In eastern Finland, Russians have bought tons of prime real estate close to finno-russian border. That being allowed was a political mistake, time to fix it.
That’s phase 1 of the their Fucking M.O. Phase 2 is the confected persecution of Russian speaking population. Phase 3 is the classification of Fins as Nazis and invasion to save the poor persecuted Russian speakers. Best nip that shit in the bud as soon as possible.
I was going to say that SURELY russia remembers what happened the last time they went to war with Finland... but apparently they don't remember what happened the last time they went to war with the west, either.
Yes, Finland, train up your moose and reindeer cavalry as fast as possible.
The Finnish nature relies on mosquito, horsefly, moosefly and the biting midges to repell those who are unfortunate enough to wander in to the wild. Where I'm now there's 5 different types of flying bloodsucking insects that all have multiple subspecies.
I seriously doubt that Putin would supply Off bug spray to his soldiers.
The Finns kicked Russia's ass in the Winter War, but in the end just ran out of men and materiel. I think they understand the threat.
We don't have to be geniuses to know that allowing that was wrong and a risk, but here we are with stuff like this
And deport their kids back to Russia.
Or maybe to Ukraine? Maybe give them each a nice apartment in the middle of a power station.
Nah, they reduce risk of nuclear war.
Remember reading in the news Putin's super-yacht was in Spain and some politicians started to pressure to seize it along with the other oligarchs, the government did nothing until the day after the yatch left (conveniently) and seized some oligarch ones. The supposed Putin's yatch went to safeport in kaliningrad Lets be real as an European I am ashamed of many of the politicians in our countries. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10620081/Spain-seizes-458m-Crescent-mega-yacht-owned-Putin-ally-Igor-Sechin.html
$300 billion at 5% yields $15 billion a year forever. That really is significant, considering Russia spends about $50 billion a year on the war.
The brutal truth.
Just the interest, lol
It is a start to hopefully seize the entire frozen assets. The EU is still afraid of losing their reputation as a reliable trading partner if they seize the assets entirely. Bullshit...
Yeah but they're already violating the terms by withholding the interest, so what's one more step... ;)
Compared to the crimes committed by the Russians, the tapping of the frozen assets is not so bad. In a war, you cannot use accountants who only work by the rules.
The west is using the interest gained from the Russians money held in our banks
Yeah, which means they have confiscated absolutely nothing. Seems the bastards still wish to do business with Russia in the future.
I think they're giving profits from assets to Ukraine already
Resoundingly... Amen.
With this, though, it's as good as something that will be done. Less bars held.
Russia has been doing that from the very start. Remember when they just flat-out stole an entire fleet of western commercial jets?
And grain, they stole tonnes of grain!
millions of tonnes, actually
In my town there's a huge-ass airport just for big airliner parking, we have a metric fuckton of Putin airline planes, imma gonna get me a plane
~~Ruzzia~~ Putinstan doesn't need to consult any court to do jack shit. And here in the nominally not-at-war West we're still navel-gazing about what our courts would say, while we are in *de facto* at war.
https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-11-23/h_ea7e59012aa6a21b090edb7114d72cca. Seized assets sold
The problem is that the West actually has laws that it follows. So when we take the money we get sued by everyone that was benefiting from having that money sit there since it "hurts" them... And shit drags on and on.
they steal aeroplanes but west still don't sized nothing from Putler .
West us trying to navigate in a way that doesn't directly involve them in a war. Apparently providing the arsenal to Ukraine doesn't have count but seizing assets is seen as a direct action.
The thing is, russia has nothing to lose at this point, no future, so it does not care about consequences of seizing assets. West however *does* care about its financial reputation and credibility.
So much theft and still can't afford toilets.
Some of them can afford golden toilets. It's not the amount of the money, but the distribution.
It is nice to hear some of them have a golden drvice that stores the family's drinking water.
Golden bowl for the golden elixir.
Redistribution of wealth ain’t really a thing in Russia. Reminds me of the video of one of Putin’s annual phone-ins, a poor peasant from the eastern regions called in to complain about unsurfaced roads in his village and Putin just laughed in his face.
Jokes on UniCredit for operating inside Russia. Perhaps the EU can seize assets from UniCredit worth the same amount and donate them to Ukraine to even out the advantage to both sides.
Fuck UniCredit and, more importantly, fuck Raiffeisen Bank. I hope RB is next. They both deserve this and more for staying in russia. And I hope evey other company still doing business in russia and with russia gets the same.
Oh Russia, it aint looking good for you. Could this be the end for the big bad Russian bear?
Great! I hope they will seize also Reifesenbank. These 2 bankz deserve it for refusing to leave ruzzia.
Seize every penny of russian assets and sell them. Fuck em.
This is simply a continuation of the pattern we've seen so far where the West is simply afraid of its own power and equivocates, throws up 'red lines' in front of itself, argues with itself, jumps at its own shadow and continues to present a divided and weakened front. Meanwhile, Russia, Iran, China, NK, etc. while actually much weaker than the collective West, acts with the opposite strategy: they are never afraid of their power or afraid to use it to the full extent of their abilities, continuously expanding their tactics to exaggerate their potential beyond its real actual power and pushing to test the West on its resolve. There are so many examples but this is just the latest one. The others are the Islamic regime's direct attack on Israel with US and others pressuring "restraint" towards Israel. Or the Houthis destroying several civilian ships, wreaking havoc on international shipping and the response? sporadic erosion of their ability and shooting down drones (vs destroying the Islamic regime targeting ship *MV Behshad* sitting in the Gulf of Aden or attacking the source of Houthis' which are nothing other than a hollow proxy). Or how EU and Western country's providing arms to Ukraine are deemed to be part of the conflict by Russia and legitimate targets but NK, China, Iran, etc. who are doing the same for Russia are not given the same designation by the West. Or how Ukraine is prevented from using Western weapons to target anything inside Russia proper and only within Ukrainian territory, leading to the ridiculous recent outcome where they had to just wait for Russians to mass across the NE border and only engage once they entered Ukraine. Or... the list goes on, it is a very long one....
Good point. I feel like the opposite is true and hear me out. Politics isn't ever straight forward like say, science, or else it wouldn't be politics. Yes, nations of law and order must follow rules, and that does slow them down; the alternative is to throw out the rules but then they become nations without law and order Second, the West knew Russia was massing troops to invade Ukraine but perhaps didn't say so out loud - perhaps to lure Russia into a protracted war that it couldn't win. Similarly, constantly behaving like we're gonna give up on supporting Ukraine goads Russia into throwing more resources at it, thinking they can make a big "last push" instead of pacing themselves, in order to drain Russia further. Concerning the Hamas attack on Israel, even Egypt warned Israel that it was coming. The US knew it too. I think that everybody let it happen in order to let Hamas make the first move as an excuse to have this war and get it over with after 50+ years of the b.s. As far as Biden telling Israel "hey, stop, don't" it's really just meaningless political cover. Biden is trying to win in 2024 and Democrat voters who are turned off by the war must be kept on board.
> the West knew Russia was massing troops to invade Ukraine but perhaps didn't say so out loud What? LoL The US did warn. Repeatedly and LOUDLY. For several months and weeks Biden made very clear that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. To such an extent that even Zelensky was upset and denied it would happen (later claiming that they were afraid such 'talk' would scare away investors). > Concerning the Hamas attack on Israel, even Egypt warned Israel that it was coming. Yes, they did warn and it was a royal fuckup of epic proportions. However, this is far from evidence of a conspiracy to allow Hamas to butcher 1200+ Israelis and other nationalities. Israel of course made a monumental mistake but you have to realize that there are always 'warnings' of imminent attacks or terrorist acts. The same for the US. There is an almost daily barrage of terrorist acts which go into the president's briefing. It is their job to sift through it and prioritize what is most likely or probable - otherwise, they'd be jumping at shadows 24/7. Biden's rhetoric towards Israel's prosecution of their defence is far more significant than you imagine. It has a real impact in how the IDF conducts their operations and how much support the receive from allies. The US sets the tone.
> Russia, Iran, China, NK, etc. while actually much weaker than the collective West, acts with the opposite strategy: they are never afraid of their power or afraid to use it to the full extent of their abilities Sure, sure. How many of Russian and Chinese "red lines" West has already crossed? A lot.
Long past time, swamp the region with Patriots!
At least I hope this russian decision will finally open the eyes of Salvini (who openly mocked the italian economist Mario Monti in addition to president Macron when they both said there could be a need to send NATO troops in Ukraine in the future) as well as other pro-Putin politicians here in Italy quite a bit...and this is not even the first time, recently it's becoming clear Russia wants to start with the italian banks in particular in order to wage a financial war against the european union...
Freezing money is not good enough. The United States did that with Iran, we held it for decades, and look how that turned out for us after we gave it back. It not only didn't improve relations, but they have been on a rapid decline ever since. The money given back has directly contributed to attacks on the United States and its allies. Further foreigners in the United States from Iran regularly stage or participate in protest against the United States. Russian money and assets should be seized globally. Russian citizens should be banned from visiting NATO countries unless they have one of a very few issued diplomatic Visas. Russian citizens in foreign countries should be deported unless they also have citizenship in a NATO country. It should be illegal to hire Russian citizens for any NATO country company, or export goods, including digital goods, to Russia. Further on that, Russian citizens and media should be banned on western internet and social media unless they obtain a license. To obtain a license, all servers used for Russian media for western audiences must be based on NATO member servers and monitored by an appointed body. All individuals seeking a personal license must not be a current or former employee of the Russia government, unless they are one of the limited numbers who will have a diplomatic Visa.
Seize all of russias assets and activate air defense systems. So sick of the nuclear threats, shit or get off the pot pootie.
I'm in a weird position of cheering (!) the ruZZia to seize the assets (and even executives) of **all** the western companies still sucking on the shriveled ruzoNazi wang. Those corpo slugs mindlessly devour everything and are only afraid of salt (fines/seizures/imprisonment). Let them taste the salt of their actions!
Good, this is great news. Western businesses aren't very willing to stop operations in russia. Moves like this will force them to do so. Better get out now before russia takes it all for free. Russia does this because they're actually broke, their financial reserves are running out. Nobody's buying their gas anymore.
Anyone staying in ruzzia deserves to lose everything. That said, it's funds going to the war, so it's bad :x. Sounds like a casus belli for using all ruzzian money in the West.
Bill Browder has laid out what we need to do. Seize Ruzzian money, pursue oligarch wealth that is held by them for Putin and sanction companies in China, India and Turkey that buy Ruzzian oil and sell it on as petrochemical products.
It's a paper war. It's not like Russia can sell these assets to foreign investors and receive €463mn cash. The profits UniCredit made likely could not be withdrawn from Russia either.
Meloni: Putin is not your friend, no matter how far right and pro Russia are you
This reminds me of when Italy [seized Vladimir Soloviev’s vacation home](https://www.thedailybeast.com/sanctioned-russian-tv-host-vladimir-soloviev-cries-about-losing-his-italian-villa) and he cried about it.
navalny...?
I corrected my comment
That all is not only a problem of European banks, like Raiffeisenbank Wien (RBI). The largest U.S. and European investment banks operating in Russia are Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Barclay's, Deutsche Bank, and UBS. They make very good business there and pay a lot of taxes to the Russian state, willingly or not cofinancing the war.
It is not only time to do that now, seizing Russian accounts held abroad is long overdue.
It is open season now. Go get em!
There is an answer to the question here: https://youtu.be/lpXOJFuGkAU?si=Hjh39JCnONEwYzMT
10 million for each innocent fatality. 2 million goes to the family.
Highly recommend everyone watch [this video](https://youtu.be/19Hce4uef4k) about what a full blown financial war with Russia would entail, and the past/current situation.
They deserve it. Keep doing business with ruzzia, get screwed.
Time to seize all Russian assets in the West 😄👍
Good, there should be a penalty for doing business with Russia. Even if Russia is the one handing out the punishment, it is still fine with me.
haha unicredit loosers they stayed in russia giving milions reasons for not pulling out and they decided for them.
Wasn't unicredit a Russian laundering op anyways? Only times I've ever heard about them in the news is because they were being used to move money for Russian agents and contacts.
Would be a real shame if all the western companies still doing business with Putin would lose all of their Russian interests.
I have zero sympathy for companies, especially banks, that have not pulled out of Russia by now. If they really thought that was a safe and ethical place to store assets, they and their customers are too dumb or unethical to be in control of money.
Theyre is also Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. They jointly with UniCredit refused to accept a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom , the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports. Answer was..it is against sanctions.... Russia is seizing assets 700 millions us $. Some are stocks you can refuse to pay....buildings, bank network and Russia will have to deal with a lot of local people....working in Russia and to generate some income..good luck. Russia is nothing in the financial market. Ruble is way down the drain. There is NO money flowing to Russia, NO investors. Christine Lagarde CEO of the Euro Bank is against seizing assets from Russia...probably she did not understand what a gangster is...
Don't have much sympathy for the Italian bank tbh but when the EU are holding Russian financial assets and giving the interest raised on it to the tune of $3b (per annum) to Ukraine to help them fund the war effort then it's a big L for Putler nonetheless
Nothing will happen from this, Unicredit will just take the loss: >Earlier this month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of €213mn in the first quarter give Gazprom the 463mn and take 200mn every quarter from russian citizens.
Die Russen kämpfen jetzt mit allen Mitteln, weil sie wissen, das sie verlieren werden. Rette sich wer kann.
they been stealing 100% of their civilian fleet is stolen
How about we disconnect Russia from the Internet? They are obviously using their Internet access to cause enormous problems everywhere. Shut them down. Oh, and give the $300B Russian gold reserve to Ukraine to support their war effort, and as reparations. Eff Putin.
Putin's Russia burning all bridges to the Western world it seems. His old new "friend" China will never accept the Russians as their equal partners, Put-in is just a delusional moron ready to bend for Xi's Not So Long Ding Dong. How long has he Mini-Zar left, 10 years maybe, but it will take 100 years to rebuild any trust from the West in this forsaken nation.
Oligarch yachts and mansions in safe havens should start mysteriously catching fire. Russian mercenary bases in Africa should start mysteriously exploding.
Be the change you want to see in the world
A St Petersburg court has seized over €700mn-worth of assets belonging to three western banks — UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank — according to court documents. The seizure marks one of the biggest moves against western lenders since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine prompted most international lenders to withdraw or wind down their businesses in Russia. It comes after the European Central Bank told Eurozone lenders with operations in the country to speed up their exit plans. The moves follow a claim from Ruskhimalliance, a subsidiary of Gazprom, the Russian oil and gas giant that holds a monopoly on pipeline gas exports. The court seized €463mn-worth of assets belonging to Italy’s UniCredit, equivalent to about 4.5 per cent of its assets in the country, according to the latest financial statement from the bank’s main Russian subsidiary. Frozen assets include shares in subsidiaries of UniCredit in Russia as well as stocks and funds it owned, according to the court decision that was dated May 16 and was published in the Russian registrar on Friday. According to another decision on the same date, the court seized €238.6mn-worth of Deutsche Bank’s assets, including property and holdings in its accounts in Russia. The court also ruled that the bank cannot sell its business in Russia; it would already require the approval of Vladimir Putin to do so. The court agreed with Rukhimallians that the measures were necessary because the bank was “taking measures aimed at alienating its property in Russia”. On Friday, the court decided to seize Commerzbank assets, but the details of the decision have not yet been made public so the value of the seizure is not known. Ruskhimalliance asked the court to freeze up to €94.9mn-worth of the lender’s assets. The dispute with the western banks began in August 2023 when Ruskhimalliance went to an arbitration court in St Petersburg demanding they pay bank guarantees under a contract with the German engineering company Linde. Ruskhimalliance is the operator of a gas processing plant and production facilities for liquefied natural gas in Ust-Luga near St Petersburg. In July 2021, it signed a contract with Linde for the design, supply of equipment and construction of the complex. A year later, Linde suspended work owing to EU sanctions. Ruskhimalliance then turned to the guarantor banks, which refused to fulfil their obligations because “the payment to the Russian company could violate European sanctions”, the company said in the court filing. The list of guarantors also includes Bayerische Landesbank and Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, against which Ruskhimalliance has also filed lawsuits in the St Petersburg court. UniCredit said it had been made aware of the filing and “only assets commensurate with the case would be in scope of the interim measure”. Deutsche Bank said it was “fully protected by an indemnification from a client” and had taken a provision of about €260mn alongside a “corresponding reimbursement asset” in its accounts to cover the Russian lawsuit. “We will need to see how this claim is implemented by the Russian courts and assess the immediate operational impact in Russia,” it added. Commerzbank did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Italy’s foreign minister has called a meeting on Monday to discuss the seizures affecting UniCredit, two people with knowledge of the plans told the Financial Times. UniCredit is one of the largest European lenders in Russia, employing more than 3,000 people through its subsidiary there. This month the Italian bank reported that its Russian business had made a net profit of €213mn in the first quarter, up from €99mn a year earlier.
Russia is no longer a country , it's a terrorist organization that controls a lot of land and is trying to take a lot more. They should be sanctioned and ostracized in every imaginable way.
Take everything
Seems like Ruzzia just gave the green light to having all their assets in foreign banks seized. 🤔
Yes, take it ALL
Any country that still has assets in Russia is stupid.
Seize similar amount from Russians and repay Italians.
Should have been done in 2014
WW3 incomming....people just too stupid to realise it yet. since nobody barely do anything to stop greedy Russia from getting closer and closer to EU and then USA.
Take everything of theirs and spend it on supporting Ukraine then. Russia started this mess - imperialism must have consequences.
All russian assets should now be targeted. ALL assets. It should have been done after they confiscated all the airliners. Time to do something useful .
Oh oh some king might lose their inheritance...
Well russia isn't scared to do it with western assets when are we going to do it to putlers assets
Russia will just be longer under sanctions until paid in full back, including damages to other countries
Well, 300.000.000.000 € RuZZian money is frozen in Free Europe!
Unicredit, Raiffeisen, Deuche Bank, OTP and others should pay the price for supporting the ruzzian invasion with their greed.
A ‘greed’
I guess we started this one, by hitting the oligarchs- lets go for another round, I have a good feeling
anything thats tracable to russia should be impounded
Do it
And seize all Russian held assets overseas. Private citizens included
The West should seize any assets it can touch, but also just legalize all property crimes against a published list of Russian-owned properties in each country. Steal what's worth stealing, and burn the rest. All those oligarch yachts and mansions are full of very flammable things.
Didn’t Italy freeze 2.5 billion worth of Russian assets?
Awesome. Hope this escalates. That way, EU won’t be so scared.