Headline RoundupMarch 9th, 2022

Should the US and Other Countries Punish Russian Oligarchs for Putin's Invasion?

Summary from the AllSides News Team

As Russian President Vladimir Putin's continued attacks on Ukraine are met with economic sanctions, wealthy Russians with ties to his regime are also being targeted.

Several yachts belonging to Russian oligarchs have been seized or restricted from leaving their current location, while over a dozen others have moved to areas where the sanctions don't apply. U.S. sanctions on the yachts prohibit any transactions in U.S. dollars related to the yacht, including maintenance and docking fees. Some oligarchs, such as Oleg Deripaska, have called for peace and for Putin to end the invasion. The word "oligarch" is often used to describe Russian businesspeople who rapidly accumulated wealth and political influence in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Some voices in left-rated outlets called for more ambitious sanctions against the oligarchs, with one writer for the Guardian suggesting that the U.S. and E.U. could "freeze all offshore holdings of Russian nationals in excess of $10m." One writer for Common Dreams (Left bias) said similar scrutiny should be directed toward wealthy Americans, and argued that the best way to prevent World War III is "is by eliminating all oligarchies, foreign or domestic, and replacing them with genuine democracy." One writer for Epoch Times was more skeptical of sanctioning Russian oligarchs, criticizing the "guilt by association" approach and questioning "whether they should be held personally responsible for the calamitous invasion of Ukraine" even if they're against the invasion.

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