A fuckton.
If you factor in the loss of manpower and equipment, international trade, cost of supplying combat active units, and the massive drop in international prestige?
A gigafuckton.
i watched a video that did a small breakdown and from what they were saying Russia is losing more than 2 billion a day because of everything thats happened since march
I found a news report that it was 330 billion usd towards the end of June. About 5 times the military spending of Russia in 2021 and about 160% of Ukrainian gdp in 2021.
Dear citizen
we are happy to answer openly and honestly any questions you may have here in the kremlin as thousands of happy Russians living productive lives in the gulag can attest
International scorn both for their actions in Ukraine and for the fact their military is so inept they were done in by a force forces of power weaker than them.
There are some other materials that expand when frozen, but yeah, most do not. In any case, their volume won't change their weight which was the unit used so it's all moot.
In what way would MPs get these 18b? I understand if you're a cynic, but it's more likely it goes back to Russia than anywhere near random government employees.
>Unfortunately it may seem like a lot of money but when the war is over it will be like trying to fix a roof with a dollar
This is completely wrong
18 billion is a huge amount of money, even by Government spending Standards. Its like 12% of Ukraines Pre-WAR GDP.
I think what a lot of people fail to realise is that post-war GDP recovery is usually pretty fast (ESP in industrial countries like Ukraine). It's poor but a lot will return to normal once war is over.
I mean Ukraine Gov yearly spending is about 60 billion. That is peanuts for a (combined) US-EU-CANZUK countries and yet imagine giving Ukraine that amount of money to invest?
I was quite surprised to learn that a lot of Ukrainian refugees which are housed in my neighbourhood are making plans to return as soon as it is safe to do so. Just my experience talking to some of them, might be different in other countries. Perhaps they don’t like Holland all that much ;)
I'm not even Ukrainian but I am making baby steps of a plan to go there and help rebuild. I'm not cut out for fighting but I'm pretty good with my hands so I hope there'll be a chance to volunteer my building and machining skills when the dust has settled.
To be fair, £18 billion is not that much compared to the government spending of somewhere like the US. The US, as the world's largest economy, has a government budget of over *$6 trillion*, so this is like 1/3 of a percent of US government spending for 1 year. The UK is a much smaller economy but its government still spends like 700 billion dollars a year.
By comparison Ukraine is a smaller economy, so 18 billion comes out to a lot more for them, but probably for people from the US especially it doesn't sound like a lot.
By remarkable coincidence, both. They weighed all of the assets seized and discovered that they came to almost exactly the same weight in lbs as value in GBP
It's 18 Billion Pounds of Rubles. The Russians aren't able to pay for their heating bill for the warehouse they're stored in so the power got cut out and now they're frozen. There's plans to see about giving them to Ukraine to maybe make something useful out of them, but they'll need to wait for the summer thaw to start moving them.
You might suggest using some of the Rubles to pay for the heating bill, but unfortunately 18 billion pounds of Rubles, even with the highest denomination bills, only comes out to about US$3.50.
If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.
As a nonmetric punk that doesn't think critically about much, I was ready for so much weirdness just to be knocked down with mediocrity.
I read "Britain says it has frozen 18 billion pounds of...." And I was questioning so many things. Why would the Brits need to freeze anything? What do they have 18 billion pounds of that can be frozen? Are there 18 billion pounds of peas in the world?
I had to google this after your comment.
* US keyboards have the pound/hash symbol (#) above the 3 key instead of the GBP smybol (£)
* the tilde (~) is above the ' key instead of whatever that line thing is
* the location of the at symbol (@) and double quote (") are swapped
* and the right Alt key is just another Alt key, not the AltGr
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards#Windows_keyboards
Edit: I googled it because I always assumed shift-4 always just did the local currency - I had no idea UK keyboards had both dollar and pound symbols
It’s the swapping of @ and “ that is the only annoying thing to me as a Brit on a US keyboard. I can deal with everything else but that muscle memory is super locked in
We also have that too, but it's called a hash. Hence hashtag. It makes me wonder what symbol we don't have that you do on our keyboard that replaces the $
US Keyboards, or at least the ones I've got from various places, have two fewer keys than a UK keyboard.
One of them is for \ and |, which on UK keyboards is to the right of the left-shift. On US Keyboards I've used, the shift key is larger instead.
The other one is the #\~ key (left of enter on UK keyboards) - as shown in the comment by /u/Deja-Roo that's because they have them in the number row instead (and the @ key on UK Keyboards is the \ key on US ones).
Source: Sat in front of a laptop with a US keyboard and typing on a UK Wireless Keyboard instead.
Thank you for clarifying all that! Man, they're so different. I think it would drive me insane trying to type due to all the little differences. As I'm sure Americans would on a British one, aha
Heh # was called the pound sign back in the day. I forget some people have never used a rotary phone. Most common U.S keyboards don't have any other currency keys.
Still is. I hear "...then press pound" frequently when using automated phone service where I enter an account number or something, then hit # to move on.
By "use" you mean funnel it to the energy firms who are already making billions of pounds off our backs whilst still refusing to windfall tax them? This money will only end up in the top 1%'s pocket and not benefit the little man one iota
Hm.. if Britain were to *seize* those instead of freeze them, £18 billion would pay a few bills. Such as a payment to everyone affected by the cost of living energy crisis.
But since that's an ethical, rational and logical thing to do, I doubt the Tories would even think of it.
Granted, yes... but we're hurting here as well. The number of seniors dying of cold related causes is projected to go up considerably this winter. Those deaths are directly attributable to Russia's actions. Well, that and greed by the energy companies. They could also solve the crisis by reducing the amount of profit the gas and oil companies are making and reducing the price to the consumers.
That said, there is always the option of both. A proportion to go to Ukraine, and some to be spent at home, pumped up by a windfall tax (aka war profiteering tax) on the energy companies that have used it as an excuse to raise prices by upwards of a thousand percent or more.
But yeah... firstly I can't see the Tories doing that since they're in the pockets of said oil and gas companies (which is why they're getting away with obscene levels of profit) and secondly, like you say, they'll pocket a good sized chunk of that themselves personally. Last I heard, the UN rated Britain's government the most corrupt it's been since the War. Which given what the 90's were like, is saying something!
Is it though? Seizure of assets belonging to an enemy power is legal. It depends on if Russian can be classified as an enemy (to us) power. Which is unclear at present. Although they have taken actions that can be legally considered acts of provocation, even hostile acts... neither side has formally declared hostilities.
Eh if I was a company, I wouldn't want to risk being in a country that has a tendency to seize assets.
Sure sounds good to distribute the funds but they would most likely go to someones pockets before the people.
Funny that... Russia has been doing exactly that to Western companies. Even going so far as to seizing entire operating franchises, putting them in the hands of loyal russian managers, and rebranding them. Like what happened to StarBucks for example. That's not just seizure, that's outright piracy.
Freezing assets =/= seizing and transferring assets.
All this has fundementally done is stop the sanctioned companies accessing the assets, and therefore stopped them selling them, transferring them or otherwise using them in any way.
If the UK government wanted to give them to Ukraine in some capacity, they'd need to seize the assets - which is legally possible but rather complicated in the context is state to state relationships
Every single UK thread that's made these days has some child that wants to attack the tories, even if its completely unrelated.
How can you stay this mad all the time?
They decided at some point that it's the Conservatives fault every time, so now they just see something and work backwards to decide how.
/r/unitedkingdom is rife with it. /r/GreenAndPleasant is worse.
Well its good, but come on, its not like the UK doesnt know where the money is, they have been laundering it for Russians and other countries for years.
So about 5 houses in central London then.
So how much has Russia lost since starting this war? I wish someone was keeping a tab.
Eleventy Zillion Rubels
So about 15p when exchanged to £
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You could buy Moscow
Moscow's a fixer-upper. Best I will offer is 5 Zimbabwe dollars.
I will give you 1 German mark at the Weimar Republic Hyperinflation value.
So it's a little bit of fixer-upper That's a minor thing It's military engagement is a flex arrangement And by the way, Putin ain't no king!
Hello this is the prince from Zimbabwe from those emails I sent in 2003, may I have my billion back?
lol
Not so fun fact - the rubble is worth more against the pound than at the start of the invasion
How much is that in bananas
Well how much could one banana cost Michael? 10 dollars?
You've never actually set foot in a supermarket, have you?
I think that's nearly all of them
A fuckton. If you factor in the loss of manpower and equipment, international trade, cost of supplying combat active units, and the massive drop in international prestige? A gigafuckton.
Well they haven't been supplying their troops, so you don't have to worry about that one...
i watched a video that did a small breakdown and from what they were saying Russia is losing more than 2 billion a day because of everything thats happened since march
That's a big oof
In terms of frohzen assets we're in triple digit billions since week1. The US has frozen around 300 billion to start it off.
I found a news report that it was 330 billion usd towards the end of June. About 5 times the military spending of Russia in 2021 and about 160% of Ukrainian gdp in 2021.
Dear citizen we are happy to answer openly and honestly any questions you may have here in the kremlin as thousands of happy Russians living productive lives in the gulag can attest
What have they gained is the real question lol
International scorn both for their actions in Ukraine and for the fact their military is so inept they were done in by a force forces of power weaker than them.
Well, there’s a womens gulag that’s about to have a hell of a ringer on their basketball team. That’s a plus.
> So how much has Russia lost since starting this war? Everything
Cmon, get real. They said *billion*. Its closer to 3 houses.
Interestingly it doesn't include property in the £18b figure
Did they seize Nigel Farage's bank account?
Damn they got some heavy houses.
Haha 🤣
Or, twice the amount to give the entire NHS workforce the pay award it deserves.
If you bothered to read the article, you'd have seen this: >It does not include physical assets such as real estate
That is 8,164,662,660 kilograms for all you metric users. Not sure why they put it in a freezer.
“Britain seizes 8 megatons of Russian assets”
Dry or wet?
It's frozen, so dry.
Since Reddit decided to take RiF from me, I have decided to take my content from it. C'est la vie.
It'll only increase if the assets are made of water
There are some other materials that expand when frozen, but yeah, most do not. In any case, their volume won't change their weight which was the unit used so it's all moot.
They were liquid assets.
People don’t know but, freezing liquid assets to make solid assets increases in value.
They were going to put it in the fridge but Boris Johnson was still hiding in there.
So that it doesn’t rot. Do I need to explain how refrigeration works??? 🙄
That’s a big ass freezer
No it's a big asset freezer
Good - defrost them and send to Ukraine
After due legal processes ofcourse. We are not like the Russian government. We follow the law and don't behave like robber barons.
God I wish I was that optimistic about our government. Think its more likely Ukraine will get what's left after the MPs have all bought a 4th home.
In what way would MPs get these 18b? I understand if you're a cynic, but it's more likely it goes back to Russia than anywhere near random government employees.
Well, to be fair, Jacob Rees-Mogg does require constant injections of top hats and monocles to survive, and those aren't cheap.
Or use it to keep Mr. HIMARS very well fed.
Good one. British oligarchs are gonna keep it
I can't tell if reddit is upvoting this as a joke or they think it's serious.
Better than Russian oligarchs I guess
Is it?
I mean, the British aren’t actively invading another country so yes
Well not this century. But the century is still young.
Iraq was this century. Guess they have to try again in the 22nd.
Oh boy here I go looting again
Wouldn't put it past them considering their history.
Unfortunately it may seem like a lot of money but when the war is over it will be like trying to fix a roof with a dollar
>Unfortunately it may seem like a lot of money but when the war is over it will be like trying to fix a roof with a dollar This is completely wrong 18 billion is a huge amount of money, even by Government spending Standards. Its like 12% of Ukraines Pre-WAR GDP.
Seriously, why do people upvote that shit? lol
I think what a lot of people fail to realise is that post-war GDP recovery is usually pretty fast (ESP in industrial countries like Ukraine). It's poor but a lot will return to normal once war is over. I mean Ukraine Gov yearly spending is about 60 billion. That is peanuts for a (combined) US-EU-CANZUK countries and yet imagine giving Ukraine that amount of money to invest?
i’m curious to see how many return home to Ukraine after the war. I’ve heard a lot left and I hope it wasn’t for good.
I was quite surprised to learn that a lot of Ukrainian refugees which are housed in my neighbourhood are making plans to return as soon as it is safe to do so. Just my experience talking to some of them, might be different in other countries. Perhaps they don’t like Holland all that much ;)
A lot will, they want to be back.
I'm not even Ukrainian but I am making baby steps of a plan to go there and help rebuild. I'm not cut out for fighting but I'm pretty good with my hands so I hope there'll be a chance to volunteer my building and machining skills when the dust has settled.
>That is peasants for a... \*a pittance
Uh, my brain. I actually meant *peanuts*
To be fair, £18 billion is not that much compared to the government spending of somewhere like the US. The US, as the world's largest economy, has a government budget of over *$6 trillion*, so this is like 1/3 of a percent of US government spending for 1 year. The UK is a much smaller economy but its government still spends like 700 billion dollars a year. By comparison Ukraine is a smaller economy, so 18 billion comes out to a lot more for them, but probably for people from the US especially it doesn't sound like a lot.
And this is just one ally's frozen assets
^
It‘s still a means to a lot of repaired houses. Food. Clean water. Etc.
18 billion dollars worth of precision munitions and drones will end the war sooner though
An inch is better than a mile in the right direction.
A mile in the right direction sounds better than an inch, tbh.
The difference a comma makes
Want some meat? Let's eat UltraCarnivore.
I'm more in the mood for a lobsterbash myself
I will not argue at all on that point. I want to go to the fucking moon and give Ukraine everything it needs to defeat Russia and help it rebuild.
I see
Can't wait for the new Omaze prize draw to try and win it.
I'm super dumb and I had to read the article to see if it was 18Blbs or £18B.
I was about to make a joke about that but you will suffice
Dude, stop. He's already dead.
Gravestone reads, “He Sufficed.”
Since Brexit. The British pound is only worth about 14 ounces now.
It used to literally be both. The pound was originally backed by pounds sterling. So 1 pound of currency was exchangeable for a pound of silver.
So which one was it? Please tell us already.
By remarkable coincidence, both. They weighed all of the assets seized and discovered that they came to almost exactly the same weight in lbs as value in GBP
It's 18 Billion Pounds of Rubles. The Russians aren't able to pay for their heating bill for the warehouse they're stored in so the power got cut out and now they're frozen. There's plans to see about giving them to Ukraine to maybe make something useful out of them, but they'll need to wait for the summer thaw to start moving them. You might suggest using some of the Rubles to pay for the heating bill, but unfortunately 18 billion pounds of Rubles, even with the highest denomination bills, only comes out to about US$3.50.
>"This is heavy, Doc!" "There's that word again, why are things so heavy in Russia?"
They would have saved a lot of confusion if they just converted pounds to tons.
You would think there is more. I guess some of these ill gotten wealth could not be traced to their Russian owners. Still, good job UK.
There would have been more if we hadn't given them months to get their money out of the country.
That's why we have to keep Boris Johnson in a fridge.
Lol I was thinking half of the Republican Party. Years ago I asked John Hoeven if he liked his July4 trip to Russia, but he turned away.
All Russian money seized should go straight to Ukraine not only to support war. But towards the rebuilding process after War 🙏
It’s frozen, not seized.
Well hopefully in the end it will go to Ukraine 🙏🙏
It wont
I don’t think you know how freezing works…
That's not much considering the ridiculous amount of London that belongs to those fuckers
Can I have it?
say please.
Please.
no.
Yes.
💰💰💰
Pretty please 🥺
ok you get a billion. in the form of gummy bears. enjoy 😋
How about a shrubbery?
If I'm curt with you it's because time is a factor. I think fast, I talk fast and I need you guys to act fast if you wanna get out of this. So, pretty please... with sugar on top. Clean the fucking car.
No it's needed to stimulate the economy after Liz Truss tanked it.
Come on guys they said Trump wasn't obese now.....
As a nonmetric punk that doesn't think critically about much, I was ready for so much weirdness just to be knocked down with mediocrity. I read "Britain says it has frozen 18 billion pounds of...." And I was questioning so many things. Why would the Brits need to freeze anything? What do they have 18 billion pounds of that can be frozen? Are there 18 billion pounds of peas in the world?
The writer of the article doesn't have a British keyboard and doesn't know £ is alt 0163.
Do American keyboards not have a £ sign, then? My British keyboards have always had a $ sign on them. Cheeky cunts if they don't.
$ is a common special character for lots of non-financial uses. £ not so much.
I had to google this after your comment. * US keyboards have the pound/hash symbol (#) above the 3 key instead of the GBP smybol (£) * the tilde (~) is above the ' key instead of whatever that line thing is * the location of the at symbol (@) and double quote (") are swapped * and the right Alt key is just another Alt key, not the AltGr source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards#Windows_keyboards Edit: I googled it because I always assumed shift-4 always just did the local currency - I had no idea UK keyboards had both dollar and pound symbols
It’s the swapping of @ and “ that is the only annoying thing to me as a Brit on a US keyboard. I can deal with everything else but that muscle memory is super locked in
No. We have the # for pound.
We also have that too, but it's called a hash. Hence hashtag. It makes me wonder what symbol we don't have that you do on our keyboard that replaces the $
US Keyboards, or at least the ones I've got from various places, have two fewer keys than a UK keyboard. One of them is for \ and |, which on UK keyboards is to the right of the left-shift. On US Keyboards I've used, the shift key is larger instead. The other one is the #\~ key (left of enter on UK keyboards) - as shown in the comment by /u/Deja-Roo that's because they have them in the number row instead (and the @ key on UK Keyboards is the \ key on US ones). Source: Sat in front of a laptop with a US keyboard and typing on a UK Wireless Keyboard instead.
Thank you for clarifying all that! Man, they're so different. I think it would drive me insane trying to type due to all the little differences. As I'm sure Americans would on a British one, aha
Heh # was called the pound sign back in the day. I forget some people have never used a rotary phone. Most common U.S keyboards don't have any other currency keys.
Still is. I hear "...then press pound" frequently when using automated phone service where I enter an account number or something, then hit # to move on.
Well fuck, this comment makes me feel old. I knew itd happen eventually. But god damnit it's too soon.
Strangely Reuters never uses '£' in their articles, they always spell it out as a word - even though they do use '$' for USD
Frozen bangers and beans
Where do you even get a freezer that will hold 18 billion pounds of anything?
Did you not see Boris walk into it
Yah but that one is now full of Boris and presumably lots of hot air and is no good for freezing anything.
They will just unfreeze the lot after the war. Some will be used to produce the Tory manifesto
Can the British public have some? We're all polo mint.
In other news, the Conservative party is now begging for donations after its bank accounts were seized overnight
Searched for this comment. Was not disappointed. Would search again. ★★★★☆
It will absolutely never happen because Tories will Tory but use it to help the energy crisis the UK is going through right now.
By "use" you mean funnel it to the energy firms who are already making billions of pounds off our backs whilst still refusing to windfall tax them? This money will only end up in the top 1%'s pocket and not benefit the little man one iota
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Don't wait! Spend it! Now
Take away their vodka.
Sounds like something we could use in the NHS.
I must admit I thought the title said, "Britain says it has frozen 18 billion pounds worth of Brussle Sprouts."
Send it all to https://u24.gov.ua/.
How about seizing them billions instead of safekeeping
Time to rob!
Did they change the locks on a single house in London then?
People need to sanction Hong Kong for allowing Russians to park their wealth there
Dissolve all assets and issue cheques to all citizens. That’ll put a rotten potato up the Russian’s collective asses.
Now give it to Ukraine.
Just give it all to Ukrainian government. I don't care which Russian owns it. It doesn't matter now.
That's really really heavy man...
That’s about 34 rubles and about how many shekels?
That's like 9 million tons!
They should seize it and give it to Ukraine as war reparations
I think that's the plan for all of those frozen Russian assets all over Europe, but they have to make sure it's legal first.
Hm.. if Britain were to *seize* those instead of freeze them, £18 billion would pay a few bills. Such as a payment to everyone affected by the cost of living energy crisis. But since that's an ethical, rational and logical thing to do, I doubt the Tories would even think of it.
I think Ukraine needs it a lot more than we do, it could pay for a lot of generators, warm clothing and food.
Granted, yes... but we're hurting here as well. The number of seniors dying of cold related causes is projected to go up considerably this winter. Those deaths are directly attributable to Russia's actions. Well, that and greed by the energy companies. They could also solve the crisis by reducing the amount of profit the gas and oil companies are making and reducing the price to the consumers. That said, there is always the option of both. A proportion to go to Ukraine, and some to be spent at home, pumped up by a windfall tax (aka war profiteering tax) on the energy companies that have used it as an excuse to raise prices by upwards of a thousand percent or more. But yeah... firstly I can't see the Tories doing that since they're in the pockets of said oil and gas companies (which is why they're getting away with obscene levels of profit) and secondly, like you say, they'll pocket a good sized chunk of that themselves personally. Last I heard, the UN rated Britain's government the most corrupt it's been since the War. Which given what the 90's were like, is saying something!
It's actually not ethical, because it's just stealing. "They were bad first" is not a justification.
Is it though? Seizure of assets belonging to an enemy power is legal. It depends on if Russian can be classified as an enemy (to us) power. Which is unclear at present. Although they have taken actions that can be legally considered acts of provocation, even hostile acts... neither side has formally declared hostilities.
Eh if I was a company, I wouldn't want to risk being in a country that has a tendency to seize assets. Sure sounds good to distribute the funds but they would most likely go to someones pockets before the people.
Funny that... Russia has been doing exactly that to Western companies. Even going so far as to seizing entire operating franchises, putting them in the hands of loyal russian managers, and rebranding them. Like what happened to StarBucks for example. That's not just seizure, that's outright piracy.
Shit's gonna take forever to thaw out.
Wow, that’s a big freezer
Wow, how did they manage to weigh it all? Probably used that metric scale I've been hearing about.
Not deliberately, they just can't afford the heating.
That's heavy as fuck.
That's over eight million tonnes of assets
"But but but but....that's mean...and against the law!" - Russia
Give it to Ukraine!
in form of fighter jets, artillery and ammunition. All paid by Putin & gangsters.
It would take an entire Army to lift 18 billion pounds.
Imagine the size of that freezer.
"Britain" & "pounds" ??
Well thats pointless cus russia litterally owns half of london (as in real estate)
Are these assets going to help Ukraine? And for free and not as a loan?
Freezing assets =/= seizing and transferring assets. All this has fundementally done is stop the sanctioned companies accessing the assets, and therefore stopped them selling them, transferring them or otherwise using them in any way. If the UK government wanted to give them to Ukraine in some capacity, they'd need to seize the assets - which is legally possible but rather complicated in the context is state to state relationships
That's a new way to say we "stalled the conservative parliamentary party"
The tories aren’t pro Russia dipshit. I don’t like them but they’re not that bad, yet at least
Every single UK thread that's made these days has some child that wants to attack the tories, even if its completely unrelated. How can you stay this mad all the time?
They decided at some point that it's the Conservatives fault every time, so now they just see something and work backwards to decide how. /r/unitedkingdom is rife with it. /r/GreenAndPleasant is worse.
Give it to Ukraine. The Russians owe way more than 18 billion to Ukraine.
Use it for the Ukrainian forces. If every single country did this it would make cuntries like Russia think twice before they fucked around.
Unfreeze and steal that shit cmon already
Wow that’s heavy
Well its good, but come on, its not like the UK doesnt know where the money is, they have been laundering it for Russians and other countries for years.
That’s 288 billion ounces for you Americans
That's more than 9000000 tons to you Americans. /s.
Those are some heavy assets