Targeting Putin's Personal Wealth Would be Going 'Nuclear'

This morning I read this article in New York Times on the present search for Putin's secret fortune:

www.nytimes.com...

Seeing what assets the Russians hold here and in London, I would not be surprised if it was hidden in plain sight. Here in Dubai are many assets formerly owned by 'Alfa-Group' ( www.alfagroup.org... ) which have recently shifted ownership and/or been restructured.

Most publicly, Alfa-Group's TNK-BP (British Petroleum's operations in Russia) was acquired hostilely by Rosneft ( www.rosneft.com... ) in 2013 ( online.wsj.com... ). Rosneft is a petrochemical corporation majority owned by the Russian government and seen as an integral part of its strategic reserves.

Also Gunvor Group Ltd. ('Gunvor' is a word from the Viking Varangian rulers of Russia meaning 'careful in fighting'), a Swiss commodities group who has offices here in Dubai, focuses primarily on transactions dealing with Russian oil assets. It has recently become a focus of western sanctions, allegedly serving as a shelter for Putin's wealth ( www.bloomberg.com... ). Guvnor took over the offices of Alfa-Group subsidiary, Alfa-Tsentr ( alfa-tsentr.ru... ) here in Dubai in 2011 and also assumed control of their VIP public relations + valet services firm, Czargrad Ltd. ('Czargrad' is a reference to the old Viking Varangian name for Constantinople). This latter action effectively made them my employer.

Gave you your first flag. Everybody needs a flag. Welcome to ATS.

The only place the word, "nuclear" appeared was in the title. So how does any of what you wrote indicate what was proposed in the title?

a reply to: ALoveSupreme

I would be surprised it this would actually happen. Can you imagine the tin or worms for all the other politicians that this would open?

Imagine had someone thought of targeting Clinton's personal wealth over Monica when he was caught lying? or someone so smug as the UK's Osborne and Cameron or even the Queen - not to mention the King of Saudi and all those other wealthies.

It really would be the public finally getting some power if these people could be targeted successfully for all their misdeamours and making them personally pay.

a reply to: smithjustinb

Thanks for your welcome!

Sorry, this was contained in the main article that I linked. It suggested that analysts believe targeting Putin's personal wealth would amount to a 'nuclear' escalation.

So far, the American government has not imposed sanctions on Mr. Putin himself, and officials said they would not in the short term, reasoning that personally targeting a head of state would amount to a “nuclear” escalation, as several put it.

Having dealt with these companies, which operate very much in an integral way to one another, I would suggest that Putin might escalate to war for other reasons than the protection of some offshore personal fund.

originally posted by: Shiloh7
a reply to: ALoveSupreme

I would be surprised it this would actually happen. Can you imagine the tin or worms for all the other politicians that this would open?

Imagine had someone thought of targeting Clinton's personal wealth over Monica when he was caught lying? or someone so smug as the UK's Osborne and Cameron or even the Queen - not to mention the King of Saudi and all those other wealthies.

It really would be the public finally getting some power if these people could be targeted successfully for all their misdeamours and making them personally pay.

I agree, Shiloh. I would be surprised if Western governments did this.

In such a monolithic power structure as the Kremlin's it is difficult to not threaten the entire structure by attacking one of its edifices. It could easily be construed as an act of war.

And seeing as how these companies now do so much business in western markets (some of aforementioned are traded on London Stock Exchange), it will likely be exceedingly difficult to convince the West to proceed with such sanctions.

United States has no guts to block Putin's entire wealth or Kremlin's overseas assets.

This is the modern Russia we're talking about.

"Targeting Putin's Personal Wealth"

Tony Blair used that excuse when sadams wealth was stolen but the facts are that it was not his personal money and belonged to the people of Libya and this excuse allowed Blair to get away with it but he did need to go into hiding for about a year afterwards.

Mr Putin does not have a personal account with $40bn in it like some pepole here claim he has and trying to freeze that type of money if it's not just moved to another digital bank account might get un frozen with a few nukes from Russia or they would just seize all the assets based in Russia and tell the USA to keep it's fiat paper.

London has a property boom and I have been informed by two people that this is all Russian money pooring into property.

The OP knows thats the CDS has the wheels falling off the banking system and peope in the casino are starting to panick so maybe this phony war is also an excuse to blame it all on someone else in an attempt to avoid being hung by people in the streets.

One little suitecase bomb (39 are missing) let off in the sqare mile of london would permantly close the casino in the blink of an eye if this war ever got real and then Putin could offer Europe terms of surender for being so stupid as to letting the USA tell Europe what it can and cannot do and demand payment of this now $40bn worthless fiat paper being payed in Gold.

Logic says to me that no one is about to start playing chicken with Russia so my conclusion is that Putin is in on a deal with Obama but we will see.

Due to U.S sanctions however Gunvor is now consolidated under one man, Torbjorn Tornqvist. Attempting sanctions against one of the largest trading consortium's on the planet seems like a pretty mad thing to do.

I do not want my farms in the outer provinces seized by trade consortium mercs in the end of days.

originally posted by: VirusGuard
"Targeting Putin's Personal Wealth"

Tony Blair used that excuse when sadams wealth was stolen but the facts are that it was not his personal money and belonged to the people of Libya and this excuse allowed Blair to get away with it but he did need to go into hiding for about a year afterwards.

I think you're getting your military endeavors mixed up. Blair was in power when we went into Iraq, and Saddam Hussein was the one we targeted. Libya was under Cameron and Obama, and their despotic leader was Gaddafi.

Aside from that, the "nuclear" we are talking about here has nothing to do with weaponry, this is just a turn of phrase meaning the "nuclear option", denoting the significance of the impact such a move would have. This has nothing to do with weapons being used and everything to do with this being the ultimate method of getting to Putin with sanctions.

Personally, I believe that if Putin visibly sends his military into Ukraine all bets are off. There are far too many other nations in that region who are NATO allies, and there would be massive demand to act militarily to defend them. I foresee a battle on the ground, in and around Ukraine and their neighbors (much like the Georgian war), but making it a direct war between the US and Russia/UK/Nato etc would be avoided by all sides.

This will likely be a proxy war, but there will be a deterioration of relations further, and potentially with such considerable sanctions too. We'll have to feel very bad for the people in the region for a long time to come, but when there is a direct threat to either Europe, the UK or the USA things will have to change.

Other actors in this should not be underestimated either. If a nation becomes so desperate for American support, they could act to draw in other countries and make this far more significant. If Ukraine is overpowered, their neighbors might just "create" something to draw America in.

originally posted by: wisdomnotemotion
This is the modern Russia we're talking about.

Only in the modern Russia can the president work all his life as a public servant and be paid a modest salary, yet end up amassing a personal fortune of (some say) in excess of 70 billion dollars (US), although perhaps slightly less now the Rouble has crashed in value.

Regards

Maybe belong's here instead,,just more insight into high finance,,

"The Chinese replace Russians as top apartment buyers"

quote
"For the first time, the Chinese have become the biggest foreign buyers of apartments in Manhattan, real estate brokers estimate, taking the mantle from the Russians—whose activity has dropped off since the unrest in Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions against Russia by the United States."

unquote

Let the game begin.

www.cnbc.com...

You got a star just for having Coltrane as your profile pic. The thread content was interesting as well... But Trane.... I think I'm going to put Crescent on right now.

originally posted by: Rocker2013
Aside from that, the "nuclear" we are talking about here has nothing to do with weaponry, this is just a turn of phrase meaning the "nuclear option", denoting the significance of the impact such a move would have. This has nothing to do with weapons being used and everything to do with this being the ultimate method of getting to Putin with sanctions.

Thanks for making that clearer. I thought I was stressing the metaphorical nature of 'nuclear' by putting it in quotations but going back to read what I initially posted I can see I could have done better.

a reply to: BobAthome

Makes me wonder how seriously they are taking the "nuke going off in Manhatten" phrase Obama suggested.
Could be a big insurance payout day...

originally posted by: AudioOne
You got a star just for having Coltrane as your profile pic. The thread content was interesting as well... But Trane.... I think I'm going to put Crescent on right now.

Few albums are for me simultaneously so melancholy and visceral. I was listening to the title track from the Tokyo album just last evening while doing my evening puzzle.

originally posted by: VirusGuard
"Targeting Putin's Personal Wealth"

Tony Blair used that excuse when sadams wealth was stolen but the facts are that it was not his personal money and belonged to the people of Libya and this excuse allowed Blair to get away with it but he did need to go into hiding for about a year afterwards.

Mr Putin does not have a personal account with $40bn in it like some pepole here claim he has and trying to freeze that type of money if it's not just moved to another digital bank account might get un frozen with a few nukes from Russia or they would just seize all the assets based in Russia and tell the USA to keep it's fiat paper.

London has a property boom and I have been informed by two people that this is all Russian money pooring into property.

The OP knows thats the CDS has the wheels falling off the banking system and peope in the casino are starting to panick so maybe this phony war is also an excuse to blame it all on someone else in an attempt to avoid being hung by people in the streets.

One little suitecase bomb (39 are missing) let off in the sqare mile of london would permantly close the casino in the blink of an eye if this war ever got real and then Putin could offer Europe terms of surender for being so stupid as to letting the USA tell Europe what it can and cannot do and demand payment of this now $40bn worthless fiat paper being payed in Gold.

Logic says to me that no one is about to start playing chicken with Russia so my conclusion is that Putin is in on a deal with Obama but we will see.

I know you have already been pulled up on your gaddaffi and Iraq & Saddam and Libya blunder, and BTW gaddaffi had a personal fortune of 200 billion

What makes you so sure with the amount of pies Putin has his fingers in that he doesn't have $40 billion? There is plenty of evidence to suggest he has acquired vast wealth

To add also... There is also NOT a property boom in the UK, and certainly isn't linked to Russian millionaires, in fact it's quite the opposite

Making all of this that personal with Vlad would be a really, really bad idea.

IMO

originally posted by: ALoveSupreme
Thanks for making that clearer. I thought I was stressing the metaphorical nature of 'nuclear' by putting it in quotations but going back to read what I initially posted I can see I could have done better.

Indeed. While you or I might see this as meaning the "nuclear option" as a metaphor, there will be plenty of others who see the word Nuclear and go off into talking about a nuclear war - oh the drama!

I just thought it was worth reinforcing the intention of the word in this case in a (perhaps futile) attempt to prevent that.

O'dickhead can call for banks to freeze the accounts of anyone he wants, doesn't mean the banks will do as ordered though.
In reality, any foreign bank doing so would see an exodus of customers as they show that they are willing to do the bidding of a foreign power and would be cutting their own throats!

See, this is the reason that, despite Obama calls for sanctions, and agreement (often muted) by European leaders, they are slow coming and nobody seems in a hurry - apart from Kerry and Obama - in implementing them. Too many companies in Europe have big investments in Russia and they ARE NOT willing to be ordered about by Washington, let alone their own leaders and negatively impact their own businesses, and rightly so.