Last week (March 19), speaking at an annual conference of the Union of Russian Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP)—Russia’s main business lobbying group—President Vladimir Putin promoted a previously announced financial amnesty. Putin implied that Russia’s super-rich must repatriate their capital back from abroad and out of offshore havens to legalize them in Russia with impunity. A mass repatriation of capital could help overcome the present Russian economic and financial doldrums, caused by a steep decline in the price of oil and other export commodities, the Ukrainian conflict, and Western punitive sanctions. To force the repatriation of secret multi-billion-dollar deposits stashed away …read more
Source: The Jamestown Foundation