Ukraine's Iron Harvest and the Oligarchs
by Richard Kemp • April 26, 2023 at 5:00 am
The media prefer to talk of mansions and opulent yachts rather than the corporate assets which continue to generate profits for the oligarch class that includes men like Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Roman Abramovich, Boris Rotenberg, Vladimir Potanin, Viatcheslav 'Moshe' Kantor, and Igor Shuvalov as well as their sons and daughters who occupy key banking and business roles too. All of these have been sanctioned and some of their assets frozen.
Serious consideration should be given to finding a way to hold the beneficiaries of Putin's largesse even more accountable, if possible, and direct their assets to rectifying the damage that their patron-in-chief has caused. It is likely that tens of billions of US dollars of Putin's oligarchs' assets have already been frozen under international sanctions. This means Russia cannot use them, but as things stand, they cannot be confiscated and put to work to help Ukraine re-build, much as there is the desire in the US, UK and EU to do so.
A series of bills has already been introduced in the US Congress towards this aim, but they would all appear to fall foul of domestic laws as well as international investment laws. What is now needed therefore is a coordinated legislative effort in Washington, London and like-minded capitals to permanently deprive Russia of these funds and use them to help offset the massive reconstruction bills that will otherwise fall entirely to US, British and European taxpayers.
The World Bank estimates an overall reconstruction bill for Ukraine at $349 billion, an eye-watering sum that is rising by the week. Ukrainian government sources put it at more like $700 billion. Somehow this has all got to be paid for, and it's not going to come from Ukraine, whose economy is in tatters after months of fighting for its very survival. The chances of getting Russia to cough up are close to zero, whatever the talk of war crimes trials and reparations.
Meanwhile, sanctioned Russian oligarchs, who themselves bear considerable responsibility for Putin's aggression, simply alter the ownership of their corporations to avoid penalties, often with their vast fortunes residing in Western banks and property empires. It is time for their wealth to come under greater scrutiny as the world figures out how to put Ukraine back together when the war eventually comes to an end.
