Unraveling the Mystery of Alleged Putin’s Monies

Natasha WRIGHT

Natasha Wright

EU seems to be oblivious to the fact that it is tarnishing their own reputation and demolishing it to pieces unawares.

The Collective West tend to think that they had ‘hip, hip hurray’ seized Putin’s fortunes, but truth be told, they don’t know where it is

European Parliament adopted these days the non-binding Resolution to declare Russia a country sponsoring terrorism because of the ongoing Ukraine crisis

If we cast a quick glance at the voting the other day, 494 members of Parliament supported this document, 596 European Parliamentarians voted in total. 58 were against, 44 abstained from voting. Funnily enough what makes this pseudo-Resolution rather laughable is that this resolution has no direct legal consequences on the European Union, yet it mirrors the prevailing opinion of the European Parliament members who have adopted a range of anti-Russia documents only this year.

To further rub salt in the EU’s wounds, the European Union now has no legal framework to declare some countries as sponsors of terrorism. Yet since 2016 it has been made possible to introduce sanctions against natural persons and organizations for alleged support of terrorism. 13 natural persons and 4 organizations are in the sanctions list including the Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. In July this year U.S. Senate passed a non-binding resolution calling Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State to proclaim Russia as a terrorism – sponsoring country because of its activities in Chechnya, Siria, Gruzia and Ukraine but the House of Representatives passed a similar measure earlier on but only the State Department has the authority to declare any country a terrorism – sponsoring country.

In the Resolution passed on 27 July 2022, Russia allegedly used brute force in the Second Chechnya War and in the acts of brutality against the Ukrainian civilians in Donbass 2014, alleged Skripal poisoning and the military actions of the Russian army in the special Russian military operation. At the beginning of September, Biden said that the U.S. should not declare Russia as a terrorism sponsoring country, but U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to explain why the USA will not do any such thing. He elaborated that the USA is constantly coming up with ways as to how to impose pressure on Russia. They are working closely with the Congress to pass a law in such a way that they help them to come up with solutions to avoid enlisting a country into such a list. We could have seen before that such an action can have unpredictable consequences. Earlier they have communicated that declaring Russia a terrorism sponsoring country would totally tie the hands of the global community in their pursuit to solve the Ukraine crisis. It seems that Blinken is trying to wriggle out of the real issue here.

Asked to make his comments on this, Sergej Lavrov said in his most civil manner that only medical doctors can comment on this. Maria Zakharova, the most superb Kremlin spokesperson, responded by saying that the European Parliament should be declared an idiotism sponsoring organization’. Вы правы, дорогая Мария!

From a legal point of view, a decision to declare a country as a terrorism sponsoring country means absolutely nothing, nada, zilch. There is no law in any country and nor is there in the USA to make something like that possible. First of all, a terrorism sponsor cannot be a country per se but a natural person. Yet, this bogus resolution opens a proverbial Pandora box of possible future resolution building up further. Otherwise, we would not be talking about it at all.

What does this bleak political future hold for us? It seems to be a most fervent wish of the Collective West to confiscate Russian monies. An immediate image of Biden the Hunchback of Notredame comes to my mind sniggering diabolically coming up with ways as to how to plunder Russian resources Merchant of Venice style but a modernised version to cater for the year 2022. Then comes the famous and infamous hawkish Victoria Nuland, then the evil Madeleine Albright and the list goes on. We are yet to see what financial abracadabra they will deploy to do that. They seem to be tiptoeing around the global financial minefield so as to see what can possibly be done and what not.

The U.S. jackals are now merely testing the waters. The laws in the USA and EU indicate that nothing can be done on this front. According to these laws, not even Russian assets can be spent at this point. These are frozen assets and nobody can spend them or use them for any other intents and purposes. Russia cannot make use of them and neither can the Collective West and no other country can use these funds so as to under false pretences solve Ukraine dire straits. That is why it is being recommended to the EU to pass such a law to enable it. There is no centralized system so as to detect how much money a country has, where these funds are and in which bank accounts. That is the reason why the EU has passed a law to penalise anybody who dare breach the sanctions against Russia. The punishment could be imprisonment but to all those Great Inquisition/ Great Pretenders/ Great Confiscators of the Collective West, it is much more appealing to freeze and confiscate other people’s and other countries’ assets

In that case they would rather use Russian assets the way they deem fit in their wettest Russophobia dreams. Still, in that case only the Courts can legally decide and pass their legal court decisions. We can see from afar that this will mean a bonanza for the lawyers specializing in private property, frozen Russian assets cases and such, who would try and establish who the perpetrators are and if they have broken any laws.

So, the EU passes a bogus resolution to wrap it up in an ideological camouflage for the narrative they are pushing all along and then only to pass yet another in quick succession to enable the confiscation of the Russian assets in due course. But in doing so, EU seems to be oblivious to the fact that it is tarnishing their own reputation and demolishing it to pieces unawares, because a lot of countries would wonder and rightly so, which country is the next one in line to be cancelled, sanctioned illegally and banished as a pariah state. All these other countries are quietly watching, well aware that the very same fate can befall them as well sadly. One would tend to think that may well be China the next one in line to be cancelled, whitewashed, banned and banished. Though, shuffling the financial and political feathers at this point with China and India would be rather risky because there is a huge trade exchange in between them. A third solution to invest the frozen assets and to make use of the profits gained to use to help Ukraine is also being tested. However, that is also illegal because frozen assets means they are frozen for everybody. Even if that might happen in theory because after all laws are written by fallible, sinful humans. There is still a lingering question as to which funds exactly they would like to use. Atlantic Association recently complained that they do not know where these assets are. It is a rather complex issue what ways the Collective West would apply to locate these assets but we already know the answer to it. There is no way they possibly can.

Not only because Russia invested wisely. Because at the time when sanctions were imposed American banks had scarce Russian assets. Russia allegedly was viewed as a country which keeps their money in U.S. banks i.e. in U.S. bonds. That was true up until 2014 when they first threatened sanctions which was the point when Russia started putting great thought to how to shelter that money elsewhere.

They were unable to withdraw enormous amounts at once but gradually Russia withdrew their money from U.S. bonds, they sold U.S. bonds and bought some others merely applying a good old rule not to put all your eggs in the same basket. So once the sanctions were introduced Russia had only 5 percent of its foreign currency reserves in the USA whilst she (Russia) held much more in Europe: 15% in Germany, 8% in France, all the rest was finely scattered all over the world including Australia and Japan. If there were some centralised data base where exactly the Russian money might be, it would be way too easy to free and confiscate and eventually spend. Truth is, there is no such centralized place. The EU arguably must have sought the reports from the European banks where the Russian assets are but these are simply not easy to trace and track. In all likelihood, the EU and USA banks must have sent these reports but the Russian assets are aplenty in Asia and other countries and one can hardly expect them to perform on these reports requests and send them off to their European counterparts. Not even Japan sent these reports even though Japan is viewed as a massive U.S. ally. Strangely enough. not even Russia can use these funds. Nobody can. But they are losing value due to inflation because the funds are to be invested on a regular daily basis to be worthwhile. Yet, the dormant money is losing value. How come we are in a situation where there is no solution to the overwhelming issues at this point? Was it the skills of Russian financial managers who in this way may have managed to get the Collective West entangled in their own wrongdoing, Russia having known all this only too well that this would happen one day, believing all the more so that USA would be go this far to restrain and counter Russia and less that Europe would do that or perhaps that this is a flaw deep-rooted in the whole system of the West. It is irrelevant now. The Russian funds may well be sheltered in the banks in the countries which are not under sanctions. All the cash flow in and out is being recorded in written, digital form. These funds cannot be secretly taken away in a suitcase or withdrawn by anyone in the foreseeable future. This matter will be subject to debate for a long time and we shall surely see many more creative ways of how to rob the monies from Russia, loot and plunder its colossally vast resources and possibly gift some of it away to Ukraine and embezzle most of it for themselves i.e. the Collective West.

https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/26/unraveling-mystery-of-alleged-putin-monies/