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Here’s how to find more funds for Ukraine – liquidate Russia’s $300bn in frozen assets --- [Opinion]
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Wait, they haven’t done that already?
No. The property of the ruling class is holier than any war effort. If they start liquidating russian oligrach money to help Ukraine win the war, next thing people demand billionaires money to be used to fight climate change and famine.
Also freezing assets does not necessarily invoke a retaliation, whereas liquidating the assets could result in western assets in Russia to be liquidated for compensation. This could again hurt billionaires with relevant investments in Russia.
While I love a good hate session against the billionaires as much as the next peon, it's not the main reason
If we want to pretend/delude ourselves that we're the good guys we need to operate within the rule of law (even though of course Putler doesn't care about that).
Freezing assets - easy peasy legally sound plenty of precedent, no blow back on the various western governments who ordered the freezes.
Seizing assets however has lots of rules around it. If the west breaks those rules then they lose the "moral high ground" - the politicians care about that because then their opposition can attack them and they might lose the next election over it.
For the record I think we categorically are the good guys in this instance (Ukraine support), although it has certainly not always been true in the past for other conflicts
Profit and private property over human life. Love to see it.