Authorizing transactions involving certain blocked entities owned by Usmanov

https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/russia_gl15.pdf

by java-man • 4 years ago

37 22 4 years ago

home.treasury.gov

dang3• 4 years ago

It's against the site guidelines to editorialize titles like this. (Edit: submitted title was "Why is the U.S. lifting sanctions on one specific oligarch?")

If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Another option is to find (or write) an article on the specific point you think is important, and post that instead. Then you can link to the more general article (the one you submitted here) from the comments, for extra background.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

babelfish• 4 years ago

(Not OP) I'd be interested in discourse on this memo - rather than flagging it, would it be possible to change the title to "Authorizing Transactions Involving Certain Blocked Entities Owned by Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov" and keeping it up for discussion?

dang3• 4 years ago

The submitter did that, module HN's 80 char limit, so yes, I've unflagged the post now.

Overtonwindow2• 4 years ago

So maybe the title should be “treasury lift sanctions on Russian oligarch“ ? It’s a pretty difficult document to try to summarize in the limited characters of hacker news.

java-man5• 4 years ago

sorry. can I fix the title and resubmit?

edit: title updated.

dang3• 4 years ago

Ok, that's close enough, given that it's a subtitle of the OP. I've unflagged the post.

notananthem• 4 years ago

Usmanov is a crook who has evaded sanctions for quite a while. Curious why this administration is letting him off the hook.

java-man5• 4 years ago

Especially now. Did he made a deal? Or is he being set up?

vkou• 4 years ago

Probably the same reason that not all Russian banks have been cut off from SWIFT.

Because this lets the West pick and choose to only enforce sanctions that hurt Russia, without enforcing sanctions that would hurt itself.

rcMgD2BwE72F• 4 years ago

Russia's government gets half of its revenues from oil and gas exports, and the West can't afford not to buy it. The West can't speed the transition to renewables, because it's too costly (but all expenses for war and defense will be paid at all cost, that goes without saying).

Overtonwindow2• 4 years ago

It also allows the west to speak out of both sides of its mouth. If leaders were serious the sanctions would affect ALL Russian banks, businesses, and assets.

thanatos5192• 4 years ago

"without enforcing sanctions that would hurt itself" => as spineless as Putin.

java-man5• 4 years ago

Original title: Why is the U.S. lifting sanctions on one specific Russian oligarch? [pdf] (treasury.gov)

Changing the title to that of the original document.

dragonwriter• 4 years ago

(In response to original headline questioning why the US was removing a single oligarch from sanctions.)

It isn't. The license applies to majority Usmanov-owned entities that aren't otherwise explicitly sanctioned; Usmanov himself is still sanctioned, as are other entities tied to him.

It’s still weird, though; I suspect to really understand it (absent a public explanation) would require going through a list of Usmanov-owned entities and the specific sanctions list to find which of the former aren't on the latter and thus are unblocked, and reasoning from there.

octo_t• 4 years ago

This has more context in: https://intellinews.com/us-oligarch-sanctions-list-exempts-u...

A few other oligarchs, and their companies, have been exempted because of their importance to the global commodities market, most notably Oleg Deripaska and his aluminium producer Rusal.
When very harsh sanctions were imposed on Deripaska in 2018 that effectively banned doing any business with the company, prices for aluminium on the London Metals Exchange (LME) soared by 40% overnight potentially causing a price shock for the consumers of the metal. The implementation of those sanctions were at first delayed and eventually withdrawn completely

vmception• 4 years ago

That's amazing, I wish to have that much power and leverage within nation states.

No explanation exemptions just rubber/digitally stamped.

What kind of shareholdings do you think gave this leverage? Assuming it was the ownership or value of something critical and not some other externality.

octoberfranklin• 4 years ago

What kind of shareholdings do you think gave this leverage?

A copy of Jeffrey Epstein's DVD collection.

HWR_14• 4 years ago

What kind of shareholdings do you think gave this leverage?

One of his holdings is a giant mining company. In the past, they've had exemptions to sanctions to deal with vast natural resources, as otherwise the price of some commodities can jump by 50%. Note that the oligarch himself still has sanctions on him and his personal yacht/jet are being confiscated if in EU/UK/US jurisdiction.

Authorizing transactions involving certain blocked entities owned by Usmanov

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