Why the U.S. is going after yachts and mansions of Russian billionaire oligarchs

LTC Eugene Chu
"From chasing down yachts to seizing Italian villas, the global effort to punish Russian oligarchs for their financial ties to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been unprecedented. For its part, the U.S. has arranged its own special task force — known as Task Force “KleptoCapture” — within the Department of Justice to seize the assets of the Russian elite who try to evade sanctions.

“This time around, the effort to track down their assets is much greater,” Timothy Frye, professor of post-Soviet foreign policy at Columbia University, told CNBC. “It’ll take a long time to dig through a lot of the dodgy real estate purchases and the like, but there does seem some commitment to make that happen.”

It’s unclear, however, whether the oligarchs hold enough sway over Putin to prompt an end to Russia’s ongoing barrage against Ukraine, experts say. Imposing the sanctions against the Russian oligarchs may also prove difficult given the U.S.′ strong protections over property rights, Douglas Rediker, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told CNBC."...