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enough Western assets on its territory for proportionate retaliatory confiscation, but it still has ways to retaliate against the West if it dares to seize its international reserves and other state assets. According to experts, Russia's most likely response will be confiscating money and securities from special type C accounts, which investors currently do not have access to. Thus, Western investors would receive foreign securities, access to which would be blocked by the Russians, and Moscow would receive access to payouts from these Russian securities. Another way is to force Western companies to sell their Russian businesses for half the price or less or to transfer them to state management. Russia may also target foreign investments held in securities. However, a significant share of foreign money probably comes from Russian companies registered abroad. There is also a risk that Russia may try to confiscate Euroclear's assets in depositories in Hong Kong, Dubai, etc., through the courts. This could deplete Euroclear’s capital and require it to receive large cash infusions.
Russia continues to find loopholes to circumvent sanctions; Swiss banks came in handy. Some Swiss banks are ready to work with rubles, although in 2023, due to the tightening of service rules, customers of Swiss banks with Russian passports faced the threat of having their accounts blocked if they paid taxes to the Russian Federation or had a business in that country. This year, banks began to close customers' accounts with Russian passports. However, clients of the 10 largest Swiss banks are still able to not only keep their accounts but also to transfer rubles to them. In the case of one of the banks, it is possible to transfer rubles if the amount is over $10M, but such transfers take place only with special prior approval. After the transfer to the bank, rubles are exchanged for foreign currency at the exchange rate, and the bank takes a commission of up to 0.4% of the transaction amount. Through this mechanism, the Russian manufacturer of military and civilian aircraft Yakovlev, which produces Su-30 fighters and Yak-130 training and combat aircraft, has purchased almost $500M in military equipment abroad since 2022.
Britain seeks to destroy the Russian monopoly on the nuclear fuel market. Britain has stepped up its efforts to destroy the Russian Federation's monopoly on the uranium fuel market, which plays a key role in powering the new generation of small modular reactors. The Kremlin's nuclear giant Rosatom is currently the world's only commercial supplier of uranium, known as HALEU. This fuel mix has a higher concentration of the uranium isotopes needed to sustain fission, allowing companies to refuel less often and potentially lower their operating costs. The UK government will allocate $246M to the Urenco consortium – the world's second-largest uranium enricher – to build a HALEU production line at its facility in Capenhurst, England. Thus, Britain will become the first European country to produce modern nuclear fuel. Urenco's new plant will be ready to start producing 10 tones of HALEU per year by 2031.
Russian tycoons move assets home amid Western sanctions. Increasingly cut off from western banking and financial services, Russia's wealthiest individuals are facing a dilemma when it comes to handing their fortunes to the next generation, according to Bloomberg.
US warns Raiffeisen that access to dollar system could be restricted due to Russia presence. Austria's Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) was warned
57 RUSSIA Country Report June 2024 www.intellinews.com