For some reason, the news that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s luxury yacht “My Solaris” had anchored in Bodrum on March 21 did not cause great surprise in Turkey. It was rumored that Abramovich, who has Russian, Lithuanian and Israeli passports, whose assets in England were frozen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has been shuttling between Russia, Israel and Turkey for a few days, and had secret meetings with some influential figures in Istanbul, but that could not be confirmed. Rumors varied: Abramovich helping Ukraine-Russia facilitating diplomacy of Turkey and Israel or him trying to keep Russia from getting more damage from the US “Financial Nuclear Bombs.”
I heard the term “Financial Nuclear Bombs” for the first time in the autumn of 2019 from an American source who was familiar with the Syria/YPG talks between Turkey and the USA. I asked if this meant previous US President Donald Trump’s initiation of the first currency crisis in Turkey in 2018 with his Twitter message, “If you don’t let Pastor Brunson go, I’ll destroy your economy,” or if he just meant sanctions. My source smiled and said maybe he could give an idea but they had never used it yet.
Does the USA, which ended the Second World War with the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, now want to make Russia surrender with its Financial Nuclear Bombs?
Financial Nuclear Bombs to be dropped
Devices other than outdated political devices such as economic sanctions are put into use recently. Sanctions are still in place; like confiscating the assets of Russian rulers and oligarchs in power relations with them. But the United States began to exert its real influence through political intervention in the banking system. This device has not been used in such measure before.
A source knowledgeable in international trade and politics said that the latest development, which convinced him that “something different” was going on this time, was Italy-based UniCredit, one of Europe’s most important financial institutions, to pull out from Russia. UniCredit, which is the largest international bank in Russia (with a German and Austrian partnership) with four thousand employees, could not withstand the pressure from the USA, and decided to take the risk of 7 billion Euros loss in order not to damage its investments elsewhere.
An example: the SWIFT bomb
“SWIFT is another matter,” my source said. SWIFT is an acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications. It is a Belgium-based money transfer agency. It controls more than half of the world’s electronic money transfers, with more than 11,000 customers from 200 countries. “Biggest Clients are US Banks,” my source says; “Guess who’s in second place? Yes, Russian banks. As long as the reserve currency in the world is in dollars, the control of this system is also in the Americans. And they use it.”
The emphasis on “the reserve currency being dollars” is important. The White House is preparing measures for the control of payment methods that go beyond the dollar, for example, cryptocurrency. The weapon of confiscating the reserves of the Central Banks of the countries held in dollars or gold in the custody of the USA and the European Union, has already begun to be used. Russia cannot use half of its reserves, which is declared as 640 billion dollars, so it is looking for ways to exchange its gold abroad.
This tool is used against Russia but it also worries other countries, Turkey included, those economy is going through a crisis and in a very fragile state.
Abramovich’s yacht
Abramovich’s contacts are interesting. It is almost impossible that Abromoviç’s the Israel-Turkey-Russia route, which was detected even by journalists, to be unknown while the western intelligence agencies, from the American intelligence CIA to the British intelligence MI6 were after him. While one of his luxury yachts “My Solaris” was mooring on the shores of Bodrum, his other yacht “Eclipse” was mooring from the Greek island of Crete; It was mentioned in the media that the route was to Bodrum.
In Turkey, the opposition warns Erdogan’s AKP government that transferring Abramovic’s (and other oligarchs’) money to Turkey will result in US and EU sanctions (and worse).
The question is: Could the US overlook oligarchs’ money to flow to Turkey, Israel and the United Arab Emirates in an auditable manner? That’s a very contentious speculation. But amid the confusion of the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, it is useful not to ignore any claims.
Bodrum, Sedat Peker, UAE and oligarchs
One more thing about Abramovich’s yahts: Until President Erdogan’s decision to make peace with Mohammed bin Zayed, Bodrum, especially Yalıkavak marina, was one of the places that were the subject of the allegations of Sedat Peker, a leader of the criminal organization, who made broadcasts targeting the AKP government from the United Arab Emirates. Peker claimed that this place was used as a smuggling base because yachts the size of a ship could dock. Those allegations remained not investigated.
Returning to our topic, the world is entering a new era in political-financial relations with the US response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by the Financial Nuclear Bombs. The USA, which started to lose its impact in international politics with the rise of China, is trying to regain this effect with financial operations. Could one of the reasons why Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not support Russian leader Vladimir Putin as much as he wanted be their interdependence with the US economy?
