[vetinari]

Do not forget that there was a wave of seizures of russian-owned assets in the west.

I would not be surprised, if Aeroflot still had to pay the leases they owe, but the proceeds would be paid to subjects who had their assets seized abroad. Until it evens out 1:1.

[thereddaikon]

I could be mistaken but with the exception of Germany seizing the gazprom terminal, I think all of the other seizures have been to specifically sanctioned individuals. Of course in Russia they have a oligarchy so they probably see sanctioning a person the same as sanctioning a company.

[vetinari]

There is no such thing as a yacht owned by a person; even if you wanted to operate some small one, you would create SPE (=special purpose entity, i.e. a company) for it. So they were owned by companies. Yachts are operated as businesses, especially larger ones.

And it is not just about yachts and airplanes. There were freezed accounts in usd and eur, i.e. the primary motivator for switching sale of oil and gas to rubles. These were owned by companies too.

So in this regard, there's no difference. The famous Bismarck quote about Russians comes to mind.

[thereddaikon]

I understand how the ultra rich operate. There is still a difference between seizing personal assets that are in shell companies for tax reasons or what have you and seizing capital of real companies that do real business.