A majority of Americans and a majority of Congress want to help Ukraine win the war against Russia, and to stop the spread of autocracy into Europe. A majority of people in the European Union and a majority of EU leaders want the same. But small minorities of lawmakers—some inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin or his money, some bent on bargaining for other things—have managed to block or delay that aid.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the crunch has arrived. The far-right faction that now controls the Republican Party captured the House last year and has successfully blocked a new spending bill for many months.The prime minister of Hungary, himself a de facto autocrat, is also blocking an EU financial package for Ukraine. Eventually the European prime ministers and the Biden administration alike may well do deals and allocate the money. But in the meantime—and just in case they fail—there is something else that American and European governments can do.

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[–] benjhm@sopuli.xyz 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What are we waiting for ?

I guess - coordination among the western governments - as if only some participate, those that don't might gain from future investments from bullying autocracies. Also, there may be reciprocal losses whose impacts would be unbalanced.
But it seems to me the risks of setting such precedent are far outweighed by the risk of increasing irrelevance for our democratic values in a world of increasing autocracy, if we let p***n and team get away without paying for such destruction.
Maybe there is some way to do this incrementally, to provide more motivation to depose the tsar, stop, and quit, sooner rather than later?

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The problem is that once you take assets from Russian oligarchs for being aholes, it becomes much easier to do the same for our local rich aholes as well.

[–] hydroptic@sopuli.xyz 8 points 2 years ago

You can say "asshole" on the internet. Trying to "censor" it by hiding two letters doesn't change the fact that you're still using that word and everyone knows it; if you don't like cursing then don't fucking do it, but don't pretend you're not cursing when it's clear what you were trying to say

[–] benjhm@sopuli.xyz 3 points 2 years ago

Maybe so. But can anybody tell us, what fraction of this big sum is private wealth, rather than government assets ? If it includes items like mansions in london and french riviera the value could be much less in a fire-sale - only so many sheikhs to take over, and they might get worried too. So the "local rich" might hope to pick up bargains.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 2 points 2 years ago

Sounds great to me.