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.
(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?
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.
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).
The "leadership" of the West can't afford not to buy it for political reasons, but the people can deal with the consequences. I hope that all of those pipelines are destroyed. That will force us to take the transition to renewables seriously. Lots of people will die ... but cold turkey means fewer people will die in the long run.
Quadruple gas prices tomorrow and see how liberal people are.
Renewables are great, but still out of reach. While it would be great to have a nation of Teslas ran off solar power, that won't happen for decades if ever.
What we really need are smaller cities，and better public transit
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.
(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.
> 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
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.
> 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.
23 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 62.6 ms ] threadIf 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
edit: title updated.
Because this lets the West pick and choose to only enforce sanctions that hurt Russia, without enforcing sanctions that would hurt itself.
Renewables are great, but still out of reach. While it would be great to have a nation of Teslas ran off solar power, that won't happen for decades if ever.
What we really need are smaller cities，and better public transit
Changing the title to that of the original document.
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.
> 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
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.
A copy of Jeffrey Epstein's DVD collection.
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.