I am not really sure how this is news to anyone. The UAE is not aligned with the West and generally doesn't follow their sanctions. From that perspective why wouldn't they take the money?
Second, I think it actually __is news__ for a lot of people just how such person's store their wealth. The schemes available once you have a huge amount of money are nothing that most people can even consider as an option for a store of wealth, so it probably is a surprise for a lot of people that yes, once you have 6 figures to throw around, you can throw that money around pretty freely, and worse, regardless of what laws are created just to restrict you.
For me I hope the take away is that sanctions aren't as much of a pressure they are made out to be and tend to harm the general populous of countries more than it does the actual actors targeted by the sanctions. Financially it does hit the actors of course, but you still have people with millions or more hidden away in places the sanctions cannot touch. It's a momentary hiccup at best in many cases and the actors continue to love lavish life styles with a nest egg to pull from that lasts decades without much of a change in life style.
All while common people suffer with money and food shortages and wondering how they're going to make a living in the years to come.
The argument might be to "rise up then!" But this is really not feasible as those in power take exceptional steps to make sure this cannot happen without an excessive bloodbath, and even with that it's not clear it will actually even help.
As I see it, as long as such places like Dubai exist and Seve clients of all types, including those who aren't the target of sanctions, the situation cannot improve by sanctions alone. If hitting these actors where it counts also means that Senator Bob Everyperson gets too much attention to their financial investments, then these financial store methods are going to continue to aid such actors and will not be touched.
I don't have an answer for how ti fix this since the world shouldn't bow to any single entity's rule; but hitting millions of innnocents who have no means to fight back or effectively change the systems they had the misfortune to be born into seems counterproductive and only strengthens the grip and popularity of these actors. Cutting off the people's access to free information only makes it worse, and limiting their ability to get fresh information makes it almost impossible to change public opinion of these actors. The end result is bad actors that don't suffer at all, look even better and more popular with their constituents, and millions suffer to get basic necessities or to secure a path to a better life.
So yes, articles like this are important I think, as it shows that it's not so black and white as just apply sanction and make bad person suffer; they don't at all. A better method needs to be found.
The entire concept of using public resources and burdonsome private sector regulations to whitelist transactions has always been shaky logic. The theatre has simply bought time on - or against - considering attempting other forms of compliance (war). But its always been bullshit and its always been an option to not play along with that, and do your own thing. UAE is doing their own thing.
Its business as usual, lots of financial conferences, crypto parties, meeting and trade spot for people of all nationalities. Thats kind of one of my favorite things about travel, going somewhere where its not taboo to run into someone from a third country.
I know a lot of people that have hung out in dubai over the last 2 months promoting whatever product or service, as if nothing else was going on in the world. Russian, America, EU citizen, Swiss, Ukrainian, Ukranian-American, Russian-America, people from other countries less involved in this conflict. Just business as usual. The weather is also pretty nice.
Sometimes its useful to just shift your mental nexus. There is a version of the world where Dubai is (or remains) its own bubble while the rest of the world is shambling along with their unrelated conflicts. Like a future bubble city like in an Aldous Huxley novel or the Jetsons.
As someone who lived there for quite a while: absolutely not.
Until the oil runs out or you get khashoggid.
Expats flitting about in their little fragile world. Unlikely to end well.