One way to end it all

I understand the US has the military capacity to promptly pulverize the Russian Black Sea fleet but Russia is still a nuclear power.

However there is a way to either change Putin’s mind or provoke a coup d’état in Moscow. Identify, expose and freeze as much as possible of the assets held by Russia’s governing elites in the West.

That would require enormous courage from UK politicians. Apart from Switzerland, most major offshore zones are either dominions of the British crown, or UK-friendly like Cyprus. The City of London is also a key nexus for Russian money. UK intelligence will probably have little difficulty getting access to data from the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, and even from the City, but publicizing it will be highly problematic.

First, it could cause a massive exodus of funds from those jurisdictions. Second, it would expose too many UK politicians as tainted with unsavory Russian connections.

But it’s worth trying.

5 Comments

  1. I’ve only just seen this post and, as a Brit, I thoroughly agree. British politicians implicated in Russian sleaze is far worse and more dangerous corruption than the MPs’ expenses scandal which everyone was het up about a couple of years ago. The extreme reluctance to hold an inquiry into Litvinenko’s death is perhaps an indication of what’s been going on under the surface.

  2. I don’t follow football very closely but I can’t help getting the impression that over the past 10-15 years the English Premier League has become some kind of giant money-laundering operation for Russian, Middle Eastern and Asian businessmen.

    An example from this week.

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