I think we could start now by freezing ALL known russian oligarch assets in USA, Europe and friendly countries and anywhere else we can persuade countries to do this. They are the only ones who can apply pressure to Putin.
I mean, it's not like he makes today's announcement, and then says, oh snap, I didn't think of all my oligarch friends, they are the only ones that can apply pressure to me, I shall change my mind immediately.
It would be difficult to do this retrospectively with anything like enough speed to have an effect.
The fresh money they want to funnel out of the country before the roof caves in, yeah. And you can probably carefully target a few oligarch-controlled Russian businesses to make it difficult for them to find further legitimacy in the West. They will start doing that tomorrow, by the looks of it.
And there are probably a few visas that are due to be extended that might come under some scrutiny -- particularly in the UK, Spain and Malta.
I mean it is too much money to quickly find to put a dent on things, and in most cases it is well-embedded in funds, buildings and and businesses who will be compelled to fight the government for proof.
Even proving that properties in London are owned by oligarchs is difficult.
Sure, there are unexplained wealth order cases in the UK that can be targeted, and a few existing prosecutions maybe, but in most cases this money has gone through some hoops, legitimate and illegitimate, to end up in its final form.
It would take ages; not something you can do quickly enough to stop an invasion because you'd need to show some proof it would have a rapid effect. The speedy thing to do is to block the new flows of cash, the running business and the people.