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Comment by bobuk | Hacker News Reader

You've meant ex-CEO of Yandex Russia, i.e. subsidiary of Yandex N.V. But yeah, both of them now in Israel, trying to build a new company without Russian money. And it will be problematic because of sanctions now.

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It is kinda funny how Israel has not joined sanctions against Russia plus has provided exile for these Russian business people who have been pushed out of Europe and the US.

The goal of the sanction is to punish the regime, not arbitrarily punish all Russian individuals. Sanctions directed at individuals are supposed to motivate them to not support the regime.

If intelligent, capable leaders leave Russia and start businesses elsewhere (and even more so if they help other intelligent, capable Russians leave to work for them), the sanctions have worked as intended. If those businesses are started in Israel and not in EU or US then that's Israel's gain and EU/US's loss.

Well - right now, the sanctions punish those who emigrated (e.g. me). I had trouble opening even a personal bank account in the Philippines, allegedly "because of EU sanctions" (c'mon, when did the Philippines join the EU?), will retry in a different bank. Inability to open a bank account is a major obstacle for starting a business.

Common story. Some of the people who fled Russia to the west to avoid supporting the war got totally screwed. When they arrived their credit cards and bank access stopped working so they couldn't pay for anywhere to live, they cannot get visas etc, nobody wants to hire Russians and oh, yes, also cannot easily return home. The Russians who stayed and continued paying taxes? No problems.

Governments like the idea that they can fix things via market interventions but it never quite seems to work out how they intended.

Yeah, they're an incredibly blunt tool.

I'm not in PH but in the region, and know a few recent Russian émigrés here. They've eventually been able to open an account after trying a few banks. The banks are concerned about unknowingly dealing with a sanctioned person or business, and consequently having trouble with their access to EU and US banking systems. Banks in PH in particular often do a lot of US business, you may consider looking for a bank that does not (e.g., banks dealing more with China).

That's because it was a common strategy of the KGB to set up companies in the West. "Dissidents" were often moles.

It sucks but until you somehow prove your loyalty expect to be met with suspicion. Banks don't want to carry the risk if they can avoid it.

The banks are unlikely to be thinking about moles. They're just trying to minimise the risk that they accidentally deal with a sanctioned person/company or a front for one.

Most of the world has not imposed sanctions against Russia. But, yeah, seeing as Israel falls under the US "security umbrella", more or less, it's interesting that they didn't (as almost all the other countries military protected by the US did). Which maybe goes to show that they don't need that umbrella that much, anymore.

It seems like "Russians in Israel" comprise a sizable voting bloc therein[A]. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_Israel

"Russians in Israel or Russian Israelis are post-Soviet Russian citizens who immigrate to Israel and their descendants. As of 2022, Russian-speakers number around 1,300,000 people, or 15% of the Israeli population.[2][3]"

...

"Most Russians in Israel have full Israeli citizenship. Israeli Russians are involved in the country's economy on all levels."

Russian-speakers, mostly ex-USSR citizens, hundreds of thousands of them from Ukraine.

Israeli policy can be traced to Russia's presence in Syria, not to internal politics.

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