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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 14, 2024

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Russia and rich Russians have shielded a huge amount of money. Britain (a major hub for questionable and less questionable Russian money, also with sovereignty over the Cayman Islands etc) explicitly declined to freeze or seize assets of all but a handful of Russian dual citizens, and almost all super rich Russians are dual citizens of Cyprus, Portugal, Malta or elsewhere through investment schemes. Among the Russian rich, it’s really only a very small number of elites closely connected to Putin and his political and military operation who have been sanctioned. There were a ton of rich Russians in Aspen late last year, and of course the usual European resorts (Courchevel etc) were full of them. They just didn’t arrive on Russian passports.