2022-2024 Russo-Ukrainian War

[Ironduke]

It doesn't change the fact that it is a fresh, novel legal interpretation that has decided the interest and incomes from Russian sovereign assets frozen in the EU are no longer sovereign assets themselves.

Essentially, you are agreeing with a novel EU policy that these are not Russian sovereign assets, that you agree this interest income should be stripped of such status. These novel interpretations don't have any relation to any vague notions of "international law" or "property rights" you have previously referenced.

[Officer of Engineers]

It doesn't change the fact that it is a fresh, novel legal interpretation that has decided the interest and incomes from Russian sovereign assets frozen in the EU are no longer sovereign assets themselves.

What does that have ANYTHING TO DO with non-interest account? The fact that the bank gives me 3% interest while charging 7% loaning out my money does not make that extra 4% mine.

Any interest generated from a non-interest bearing account by definition does not belong to the account holder.

[Amled]

https://www.wionews.com/world/forget...ukraine-774870
‘Forget Crimea,’ Trump advisor tells Zelensky ceding territory is vital for peace in Ukraine

Well, no surprise here!
Trump’s miraculous 24 hour peace plan for solving the Ukraine/Russ War is simply a repeat of Putin’s demands!
Zelensky’s Ukrainians are simply to bend over and get screwed. Pay the Russian Danegeld, and relinquish its territory to the Russian aggressors!
The problem with Danegeld is that the Dane keeps coming back for more.
So one has to wonder what the next Danegeld demand from the Putin’s White House will be!
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia?

[Officer of Engineers]

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia?

Doubt it. All three are paying protection monies (2% GDP).

[Ironduke]

What does that have ANYTHING TO DO with non-interest account? The fact that the bank gives me 3% interest while charging 7% loaning out my money does not make that extra 4% mine.

Any interest generated from a non-interest bearing account by definition does not belong to the account holder.

In Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155 (1980), the SCOTUS ruled that the interest earned through the investment by the government of assets in its custody, is as much the property of the asset owner as the assets are themselves.

So as a matter of US law, yes, the interest earned from Russian sovereign assets are Russian sovereign assets as well. Which are, incidentally, legally being confiscated and transferred under US law (REPO Act).

It's a nice legal fiction the Europeans have devised to convince themselves they are not seizing Russian sovereign assets. Whatever they have to tell themselves to sleep at night, I wholeheartedly support it.

No. 79-1033, Webb's against Beckwith comes to us on appeal from the Supreme Court of Florida and the issue is whether it is constitutional for a county to take as its own under the authority of a state statute the interest accruing on an interpleader fund deposited in the registry of the county court when at the same time a fee prescribed by another state statute is also charged for the clerk's services in receiving the fund into the registry.

The statute which is the subject of the constitutional challenge here is Section 28.33 of the Florida statutes.

In an opinion filed with the clerk today, we unanimously hold that the county's taking was violative of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Neither the Florida legislature by statute nor the Florida courts by judicial decree may accomplish the result they sought simply by recharacterizing the principal of the deposited and concededly private fund as public money because it was held temporarily by the court.

And the earnings of the fund are incidents of ownership of the fund itself and are property just as the fund itself is property.

And so the judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed.

[Officer of Engineers]

In Webb's Fabulous Pharmacies, Inc. v. Beckwith, 449 U.S. 155 (1980), the SCOTUS ruled that the interest earned through the investment by the government of assets in its custody, is as much the property of the asset owner as the assets are themselves.

So as a matter of US law, yes, the interest earned from Russian sovereign assets are Russian sovereign assets as well. Which are, incidentally, legally being confiscated and transferred under US law (REPO Act).

It's a nice legal fiction the Europeans have devised to convince themselves they are not seizing Russian sovereign assets. Whatever they have to tell themselves to sleep at night, I wholeheartedly support it.

Nice but this is NOT US Law that is generating the interest but European Law. The INTEREST being supported for these loans came from Europe, NOT the US. US Laws has ZERO bearing on this matter.

[Ironduke]

And yet just 6 months ago the interest incomes being earned from EU-frozen Russian sovereign assets were also Russian sovereign assets. I wholeheartedly support the EU's legal fiction via the EU Council regulation of May 2024, to retroactively consider this income to not be so, back to the time Russia invaded Ukraine. These are the sentiments I expressed back in Apr 2022:

Decisions can be made later where the money goes, but it ain't Putin's anymore. We should straight up take it. Pass laws to make it legal or give it a fiction of being legal if need be. Then they can file all the lawsuits they want, and get laughed out of court. And I'm not saying Western firms should be given the money either. I think it just needs to be straight up confiscated and put in trust until there's a consensus where it should go. I favor reconstruction in Ukraine, while Western firms can count their losses against their future corporate tax bills for however long need be, until they're made whole.

Kudos to the EU on the creation of their novel legal fiction. I hope they can garner the will to go even further than they have so far, but it is a good first step.

Now going back to the US, it is perfectly legal for the US president to go whole hog on Russian assets, principal and interest (which there is no distinction between under US law).

[Officer of Engineers]

And yet just 6 months ago the interest incomes being earned from EU-frozen Russian sovereign assets were also Russian sovereign assets.

Can't you read? They were clearly NOT Russian assets. They were clearly BANK PROFITS! This has been the case since SANCTIONS were invented.

I wholeheartedly support the EU's legal fiction via the EU Council regulation of May 2024, to retroactively consider this income to not be so, back to the time Russia invaded Ukraine. These are the sentiments I expressed back in Apr 2022:

You CLEARLY didn't understand the "LEGAL FICTION." They WERE NOT TO DEFINE Russian assets, they were meant to define BANK PROFITS of Russian origins.

Now going back to the US, it is perfectly legal for the US president to go whole hog on Russian assets, principal and interest (which there is no distinction between under US law).

NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. MAXIMUM damage to US economic credibility for MINIMAL gains. Putin already emptied Russia's bank accounts in the US before the invasion for precisely this reason.

IN ALL CASES, INCLUDING BIDEN, NO ONE WANTS to send Russian principal holdings to Kiev.

[Ironduke]

Can't you read? They were clearly NOT Russian assets. They were clearly BANK PROFITS! This has been the case since SANCTIONS were invented.

You can say the EU has decided to characterize things otherwise. You're not establishing a matter of truth or fact. The EU's policy is a novel legal interpretation.

"This has been the case since SANCTIONS were invented."

Under US law, all sanctioned Iranian assets are required to be placed in bank accounts that earn "commerically reasonable" amounts of interest, yet both the principal and interest remains an Iranian sovereign asset. The United States does not confiscate the interest, it is not forfeited, confiscated, or escheated to the US treasury, it as much a sovereign asset as the principal is.
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-3...ter-V/part-560

This has been the case since the US first froze Iranian assets in 1979, it applied to Iraqi assets frozen in the United States as well. "This has been the case since SANCTIONS were invented." -nope, this is just not the case.

[Officer of Engineers]

Fine. Interest is how US did it to Iran BUT This is NOT the US nor is this Iran. This is Europe. Since DAY 1, the Russian holdings were placed in a non-intereset-bearing-account. I don't know how else you can interpret that self evident noun. This is NOT the US nor is it Iran. What the US did with Iran HAS ZERO bearing on European sanctions on Russia. Russia was NEVER going to earn interest in that account.

That does not mean the banks don't earn money from that account. That money belongs to the banks, not Russia.

What's new in both the US and Europe is that people have decided to give those funds to someone else (Kiev) and that's a can of worms the Europeans don't want to touch and hence, they tax the only revenue clearly do not belong to Russia, bank profits.

[jlvfr]

There's "need extra gear", there's "scrapping the barrel" and then there's getting movie props...

At leas they were in running order?...

[omon]

https://www.wionews.com/world/forget...ukraine-774870
‘Forget Crimea,’ Trump advisor tells Zelensky ceding territory is vital for peace in Ukraine

Well, no surprise here!
Trump’s miraculous 24 hour peace plan for solving the Ukraine/Russ War is simply a repeat of Putin’s demands!
Zelensky’s Ukrainians are simply to bend over and get screwed. Pay the Russian Danegeld, and relinquish its territory to the Russian aggressors!
The problem with Danegeld is that the Dane keeps coming back for more.
So one has to wonder what the next Danegeld demand from the Putin’s White House will be!
Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia?

YEa, his plan is to stop at where they are now. What do you suggest, fight for the borders of 1991? Have all military age men killed and still not get to 1991 borders? that will be the end of Ukraine as we know it. And then what? Russians will take Ukraine unopposed? At least with trump's plan they get to keep 82% of Ukraine. and male population.
It is clear that we do not give enough weapons to Ukraine to win, just not to lose. That is besides the fact that military and political leadership is super corrupt, and very much unable to properly run army/country. I'm from Ukraine, I talk to my old friends there. You have no idea what life in Ukraine is now. Over 10 millions left Ukraine, TCK is literally hunting men down , drags them into busses, and sent to the frontlines with little to no training, where vast majority is killed, Ukraine is doing same meat assaults as Russia. Now they are talking about drafting women. most Ukrainians do not want that those cities that are now reduced to rubble.
You do not want to sacrifice military, or people, you sacrifice territory, you can later regain it. lose military, and you will not have neither military, nor territory,

[Monash]

YEa, his plan is to stop at where they are now. What do you suggest, fight for the borders of 1991? Have all military age men killed and still not get to 1991 borders? that will be the end of Ukraine as we know it. And then what? Russians will take Ukraine unopposed? At least with trump's plan they get to keep 82% of Ukraine. and male population.
It is clear that we do not give enough weapons to Ukraine to win, just not to lose. That is besides the fact that military and political leadership is super corrupt, and very much unable to properly run army/country. I'm from Ukraine, I talk to my old friends there. You have no idea what life in Ukraine is now. Over 10 millions left Ukraine, TCK is literally hunting men down , drags them into busses, and sent to the frontlines with little to no training, where vast majority is killed, Ukraine is doing same meat assaults as Russia. Now they are talking about drafting women. most Ukrainians do not want that those cities that are now reduced to rubble.
You do not want to sacrifice military, or people, you sacrifice territory, you can later regain it. lose military, and you will not have neither military, nor territory,

As I've noted previously (within certain broad limits) victory or defeat in war is not determined so much by who wins or loses territory or by who suffers the most casualties and/or loses the most equipment. Instead victory is decided by what the aggressor intended to achieve when they started the war versus what they actually managed to achieve - and at what cost! By that metric? Freezing the borders where they are now (more or less since I'm sure Putin wants that bit of Russia Ukraine has seized back) is a clear victory for Ukraine.

Putin's intentions for Ukraine at the start of the war included the rapid and complete occupation of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the overthrow of it's elected government, the establishment of a puppet/pro-Moscow regime akin to that in Belarus, preventing Ukrainians membership of NATO and/or the EU, demonstrating Russia's military preparedness and its status as a top tier conventional military power and it's place in the world as a major power.

Of all the items on that list? About the only one it might achieve is stalling NATO's membership of NATO (because Trump can at least use that as a bargaining chip.) In terms of achieving the rest of the items on that list? Putin has failed dismally. And he's failed at the cost of something in excess of 700,000 Russian casualties including 120,000 dead and the evisceration of Russia's conventional military forces. More than 10 years of investment in new equipment has been lost in combat and its stockpiles of old equipment reduced to the point where T-64s are being fielded. And on top of all that? Putin is now a wanted war criminal (something else Trump can't do anything about) and Russia's economy has been decimated.

If the borders freeze more or less where they are now? Ukraine, outnumbered three to one though it was? Will have won a great victory. After all this whose economy and people will be in a better shape 10 years from now, Russia's or Ukraine's?

[omon]

Actually Putin did not fail completely, He changed the geopolitical world, now it is collective west against collective south. His newly build missiles and drones have parts from countries that sanctioned him, what does it tell us, many countries help him, gray market works in his favor. and that literally half the world is on his side.in a fight against the west,. was not really the case before,
Also Putin does not care about his dead, or lost equipment, it is all replaceable, he has over 100 millions of people, he sold his citizens this war as a war against west and NATO, he has pretty much complete support of his people, despite their horrible standards of living that constantly decline, they still see him as a savior. Honestly I do not see him losing much, if anything, regardless of the outcome, he will sell it as a victory. no doubt sanctions would be lifted, his economy will improve, he will build new tanks and everything else.
If anything Ukraine lost, they lost about 10 millions of people that will never go back to Ukraine, Zelensky has 0 chance to be reelected. All funds to rebuild Ukraine will come at a cost. The country has no workforce even if the war stops now, As soon as people will be allowed to leave, Ukraine will lose even more millions of people. People have 0 trust in gvmnt. I'd say regardless of the peace deal, Ukraine lost.

What will happen in 10 years? as far as Russia nothing will change, they will still live the same way, (pretty bad for the most part), but they actually proud of it, and do not want to change anything, I mean they do complain, make videos begging Putin to fix that road, or this bridge, or remove this or that gvmnt official, but they do not want to believe that he IS the reason why they live like they live. sanctions will be lifted, economy will improve, and they will be even happier, they will definitely see it as a victory. As far as Ukraine, it will not be where it was pre war, for a simple reason, people leaving Ukraine, and do not want to come back, you can inject all the money in it , but as long as the way its gvmnt operates stays the same, people will not come back. and considering how corrupt the gvmnt is, nothing will change, not in 10 not in 50. Ukraine did not lose to Russia, it lost to its own gvmnt. I do separate gvmnt form the people.

[Officer of Engineers]

As I've noted previously (within certain broad limits) victory or defeat in war is not determined so much by who wins or loses territory or by who suffers the most casualties and/or loses the most equipment. Instead victory is decided by what the aggressor intended to achieve when they started the war versus what they actually managed to achieve - and at what cost! By that metric? Freezing the borders where they are now (more or less since I'm sure Putin wants that bit of Russia Ukraine has seized back) is a clear victory for Ukraine.

Iran-Iraq War. Saddam clearly was the one who started the war and he gained nothing but the pre-War status quo and yet, the world acknowledged his victory because Iran was the one who asked for peace.