[SXX]

> What do you want to world to do?

Support Ukraine more.

Support refugees from Russia.

Enact personal sanctions against 6000 war-enablers that Navalny team prepared:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6000_List

And their families and kids who all keep their money in US, UK and EU.

[yolo3000]

Refugees from Russia? They are free to travel to many countries, there are plenty of Russian expats in Europe, who also happen to support Putin

[rcatcher]

Russians need a travel visa to go to any Western country and most of the world. Some EU countries are banned Russians from entering; the US is not issuing travel visas in Russia anymore.

[SXX]

US is actually quite good on offering entry to refugees from Russia. At least 30,000 people from Russia entered US through Mexico and requested asylum in US and many got it. The problem is that it's only option for basically rich citizens of Russia because whole process is expensive, hard and quite dangerous.

EU is much closer, but it does nothing. Putins regime could've lost 30-50% of it's high-skilled workforce if EU or UK just made it easier to immigrate. E.g literally 100,000s of Russian IT workforce left due to war and political situation, but getting actual work visas is hard process and outside of country of citizenship it's only gets harder if not impossible.

But honestly west can't even help Ukraine efficiently. How can one expect EU to actually do anything to cripple Russia economy...

[SXX]

There are a lot of political immigrants from Russia as well as people who trying to avoid being drawn into army. And for people who left Russia back in 2022 it's just basically impossible to get any visas anywhere simply because you can't apply for one outside of Russia without having some other residency permit that' impossible to get in Georgia / Turkey and many other countries.

EU still provide visas to tons of people who continue to live in Russia and pay taxes in Russia, but dont give any visas to people who left and dont support Putins regime.

[throw-the-towel]

And a tourist visa is hard to get even with a residence permit. The consuls (rightly) see you as an immigration hazard. After all, you've already moved countries one time, who's to say you won't repeat the trick?

Meanwhile in Moscow, you have a good chance to get a 5-year visa from France.

Fun fact: the exact same phenomenon was being ridiculed by the White Russians, back in the 1920s. European countries were suspecting them of being Bolshevik, yet the actual Bolsheviks could come just fine.

Now, of course tourist visas are not really relevant for emigration, but it's an example of the attitude shown towards us.

[Muehe]

> And their families and kids who all keep their money in US, UK and EU.

Collective punishment is still a war crime.

[SXX]

It's not like west suppose to kill or inprison them. Just go after their finances and throughfully check their source of wealth. Lots of lots of people who are close to Putins regime continue to live in a west and spend money they get out of Russia.

[Muehe]

The Geneva Convention (part IV) is pretty clear on this matter:

> Article 33 - Individual responsibility, collective penalties, pillage, reprisals

> No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

> Pillage is prohibited.

> Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.

[SXX]

KYC and AML procedures have nothing to do with Geneva convention. There are a lot of Putin cronies whose families still live in west and launder money they make on this war every single day.

[tagyro]

To add to this: Germany is more than happy to launder russian money - see Deutsche Bank, Vivid money, Solaris Bank etc. BaFin (the financial regulatory authority in Germany) ignores the situation (like they did with Wirecard)

[azmodeus]

Could you share more info about vivid? I used to be a customer for a while. How was it used for money laundering?

[Muehe]

Well sure. However you didn't say go after them for money laundering in your OP. You said go after the families of war-enablers.

[SXX]

My post clearly says "enact personal sanctions".

Freezing someone stolen wealth has nothing to do with a war crimes.

[kikimora]

War enablers have nothing, their families apparently have a lot, somehow. A strict KYC/AML would quickly find connections of their family wealth to Russia, Putin and his regime. However reality is banks forced to go after each and every Russian due to universal requirements which they have to apply to all equally. This makes any sort of comprehensive KYC/AML checks impossible because of the scale they have to applied at. These restrictions really target ordinary Russians while high-net-worth individuals find their ways around. West should dig under specific individual rather than doing what it does today. Navalny’s ACF has a list to start with.

[tiahura]

Only if you lose.

[Muehe]

De facto? Maybe. De jure? Still a war crime.

[clarionbell]

No. Not in this case it isn't. Look up definition of war crimes before talking about them.

[Muehe]

I did. Now you may argue that NATO and Russia are not in a state of war and therefore Russian citizens do not fall under the definition of a protected person given in article 4, but then you would be saying that it is alright to commit war crimes during peace times. Which seems kind of backwards to me.