MOSCOW – Not since the German government arranged for Vladimir Lenin to return to Russia, crossing German territory in a sealed train on April 16, 1917, has a foreign state at war with Russia done something as revolutionary as the U.S. Senate did on June 15, 2017. That is when, by a vote of 98 to 2, the senators began the process of attacking the Russian oligarchs. Those are the men who have dominated the Russian economy for more than 20 years, concentrating more national wealth in their hands than can be found in any other major state in the world today.
Unremarked by the senators themselves, unreported by the American press, and unnoticed, almost, in Russia, the new Senate measure — if adopted by the full Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump — will target the oligarchs’ lines of credit to international banks; the brokers, repositories and clearinghouses of their shares and bonds; their trade with the U.S. and Europe; and their U.S. companies, bank accounts, boats on the high seas and homes abroad. If targeting the oligarchs is followed by formal sanctions, the aim will be to destroy their power at home and abroad. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation hasn’t contemplated this much…
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