The geography of sanctions - if you suddenly turned out to be not a friend
Once you get down to business...
Against the background of the tightening anti-Russian sanctions of the West and Russian response measures, there are more and more paradoxes in the geography of sanctions. Many territories of unfriendly countries are not included in the "unfriendly" list, designated and soon expanded by presidential decrees and decrees of the government of the Russian Federation (May - July 2022).
With small territories, usually offshore, different things happen almost continuously. Someone enters the sanctions lists from the West or leaves the counter-sanctions lists from Russia, and sometimes it happens quite the opposite.
In this regard, the conclusion suggests itself that a kind of window for financial and trade relations between the Russian Federation and the West is still not closed. And they are not closed by both sides - business, especially illegal and semi-legal, as always, is stronger than politics and even war.
It is characteristic that these windows, although miniature geographically, almost all of them are large offshore and re-export centers. So, at present, the unfriendly list includes, for example, Great Britain, including the British Gibraltar, the islands of Antilla, Maine, the Virgin Islands (eastern), Guernsey and Jersey, which are located outside the metropolis.
However, all this is, in fact, direct possession of Great Britain proper, not like Canada and Australia. But at the same time, in the same sanctions list, there are no other British offshore re-export territories that are equally significant, along with those mentioned.
For those who are especially interested, we list - these are the islands of Bermuda, the Caribbean Montserrat, Turks and Caicos, as well as the Cayman Islands. However, from the same list it is absolutely unclear whether it includes the Falkland (Maldives) Islands, which belonged to Argentina forty years ago, recaptured by the British in 1982.
At the same time, in spite of everything, the administration of the same Caymans in April successfully "frozen" Russian assets for 7,3 billion dollars (of those same three hundred or not - who knows). But the specialized international portal InternationalWeath.info, as before, gently “recommends” the Cayman Islands to Russian entrepreneurs.
Circumstances do not dictate?
Intrusive advertising is actively and widely presenting them as “a good option for diversifying assets and registering an offshore company.” The British islands of Pitcairn, St. Helena, Chagos, where offshore re-export business is also carried out, also remained outside the unfriendly list.
Apparently, everyone should be inspired by the fact that business in all the "islands of business freedom" is carried out in significantly smaller volumes in comparison with the mentioned British territories. It remains only to reiterate that all these territories have formally imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation, but only partial ones.
The Russian hostile registry includes, of course, the United States. But it is not specified there whether the American protectorates - the islands of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands (western), Eastern Samoa - are included in the register. The same register includes the Pacific Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), which are in a common financial and economic system with the United States.
But for some reason, the Republic of Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, neighboring with the FSM, were not included in the list, and in fact - a very controversial registry from a legal point of view. By the way, all these territories were US colonies from 1947 until the late 80s - mid-90s. And they also “own” an offshore re-export business, but how could it be otherwise?
The status of the “non-offshore” Faroe Islands and Greenland, which are autonomous from Denmark, is also not specified in this register. Apparently, because they do not connect to Western sanctions, while maintaining direct economic ties with Russia.
It is very significant that the leadership of the European Union and the British government, with active media support, primarily the Euronews TV channel, in June of this year severely criticized Greenland with the Faroe Islands for economic ties with the Russian Federation. However, there was no official reaction to this from Denmark.
Do not cut the window, open the windows
The example of the Netherlands is also very typical. Yes, in Russia they are unambiguously qualified as “unfriendly”. But nowhere is it also specified whether the South Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, southern St. Maarten and the Federation of Bonaire (the islands of Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius), which are autonomous from Amsterdam, are included in this category.
We recall that they are well-known offshore and re-export centers of global significance. And they also introduced partial sanctions against the Russian Federation. And also, by all indications, they introduced it purely formally.
According to a number of data, these territories also remain outside Russian counter-sanctions. For, firstly, in mid-June, the government of the Russian Federation allowed the import - that is, in fact, the re-export from Aruba of a number of categories of goods, including, for example, spare parts for civil aviation.
And specialized Russian experts are now recommending that domestic businesses place trust funds and companies, as before, on the nominally Dutch island of Curacao. Moreover, these operations in relation to Curacao are still accompanied by Russian and foreign consulting firms.
We also note that all these territories, as unfriendly, are not on the thematic maps of the EU, the UN, or even ... in the obscenely operational Wikipedia. Is it worth it after that to prove that the said extra-sanction windows were deliberately kept by both sides.
All this is done to ensure that the shadow financial and economic relations between Russia and the collective West are preserved, and not only in the sphere of Russian gas and oil supplies. It is characteristic in this regard that basically all the same vents were marked back in the period of the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions by the West in connection with the Crimea and counter-sanctions of the Russian Federation (2014).
Information