The Senate voted to sanction Russian officials, oligarchs, their families, foreign persons, Russian banks, financial institutions, and something called the Russian shadow fleet. A shadow fleet. Like Batman but for oil tankers.
The war started in February 2022. It is now July 2026. Retail traders spent eighteen months convinced Putin would capitulate if Mastercard stopped working in Moscow. He did not capitulate. Mastercard left anyway. Russians started using UnionPay. Your thesis died but your confidence survived.
The shadow fleet designation is the best part. These are ships that transport sanctioned goods while avoiding detection. They turn off their transponders. They falsify documents. They repaint their hulls. The Senate will now sanction them very sternly. The ships will respond by continuing to turn off their transponders, falsify documents, and repaint their hulls. But this time they'll do it while sanctioned. Game-changing stuff.
Oligarchs and their family members made the list. Their yachts got seized years ago. Their London penthouses got frozen. Their kids got kicked out of Swiss boarding schools. Now the Senate will sanction them again. Double-sanctioned. Like getting fired from a job you already quit. The oligarchs will weep into their remaining seven yachts registered under shell companies in jurisdictions the Senate forgot existed.
Russian banks and financial institutions also targeted. SWIFT already cut most of them off. They've been trading in rubles and yuan for years. The ruble crashed. Then it recovered. Then it crashed again. None of it mattered because currency traders were too busy losing money on Tesla weeklies to notice.
The Senate sets up votes. Not passes sanctions. Sets up votes. They're warming up. Stretching. Doing vocal exercises. The war will wait.
Your Putin put options expired worthless in 2023, but you're definitely getting him this time.
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
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