Palaces, super-yachts, Swiss accounts. How rich is Putin and can sanctions hurt him?

On Feb. 24, the day Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian information company Tass reported that he summoned 37 of the nation’s enterprise representatives to St. Catherine Corridor within the Kremlin. It was a digital who’s who of Russian trade, together with a couple of billionaires who’ve since been hit with sanctions from the West.

Putin informed them why he had determined to assault and apparently braced them for seemingly sanctions. In keeping with revealed accounts, he left the corridor with out giving any of the enterprise leaders a chance to remark.

The sanctions in opposition to Putin himself are largely symbolic — however the symbolism is highly effective.

“The wealth of Putin, we’re supposed to grasp it as a tribute. It’s not simply that he’s another billionaire who hides his cash,” Yale historian Timothy Snyder stated Wednesday. “No, it’s a tribute. It’s a side of his energy. ”

Daniel Treisman, a UCLA professor who focuses on Russian politics and economics, famous, “It’s not that he has belongings outdoors the nation which might be susceptible to seizure that he’s nervous about shedding. I doubt that he was ever actually going to make use of all these billions of {dollars}. It definitely gained’t lead him to chop again the luxuriousness of his life-style.”

On the identical time, Treisman stated, “it is going to definitely be taken as a private assault, and he’s fairly thin-skinned about these issues.”

“I feel we’ve to be nervous about his emotional and psychological state,” he stated. “He’s clearly extraordinarily emotional about these points. And any chief, when backed right into a nook, could make choices that beforehand appeared unlikely.”

Lee reported from Washington and Pierson from Singapore.