Mar 16
The Top 10 most weird and unusual sanctions against Russia. Part 1
Here is a spoiler — even the Russian cats are under sanctions
BCC states that “sanctions are penalties imposed by one country on another, to stop it acting aggressively or breaking international law”. There are plenty of types of international conduct that should be punished. The US Department of Treasury is currently running 37 sets of sanctions against countries as diverse as Russia, South Sudan, Cuba, China, North Korea, and against various causes, such as cyber-crime and narcotics.
The overall number of sanctions against Russia just reached 5,532 on March 8, 2022. But some of them are not quite conventional, and some are outright funny. Here is the list of most unusual sanctions imposed by the West against Russia:
1. McDonald’s
On March 8 the company declared that it was immediately shutting down all 850 fast-food restaurants in the Russian Federation (some are actually still open for one reason, or another). A lot of parents across the world are wondering why such a blessing was bestowed onto the undeserving Russians. And by the way, its competitor Burger King decided to stay on.
2. Black caviar
No more Russian black caviar in Paris? Not exactly. The European Union banned its EXPORTS of black caviar TO Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the staff. This reminds me of the infamous speech by Jen Psaki, then the State Department spokesperson in 2014 when she said that the natural gas flows from Western Europe to … Russia.
3. Aircraft
Over 500 of the aircraft used by Russian airlines are owned by the foreign (mostly Irish) lessors who now demanded the return of their property from the Russian users. But there is a slight problem — the European airspace is closed to the Russian-operated aircraft, so the planes may not physically fly “home”.
4. Cartoons
Disney will not show its new animation movie “Turning Red” in Russia. Wow, that will definitely show Vladimir Putin and his 7-year-old supporters who is the boss here! Poor kids will have to learn about the US from the cartoon movie “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America”. He-he…
5. Classical music concerts
The news article heading stated: The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has removed Tchaikovsky from its programme of its upcoming concert ‘in light of the recent Russian invasion’ . Surely, this is because the famous Russian composer (who died in 1893) missed his chance 129 years ago to condemn Putin’s invasion in Ukraine. Should not the same logic apply to ALL Russian writers, painters and composer without exceptions?
6. Cats
The International Cat Federation banned Russian cats from participation in its competitions. I am not sure what to say here. Perhaps, there are some military feline brigades of fighting cats that represent tangible threat to the world but… if I suggest it here, I may end up in a psychiatric ward.
7. The US sparkling wine, cheap booze and… American vodka
Wow! The country, which is one of the largest consumer of the elite French champagne is definitely going to suffer from not having the American sludge. By the way, MD 20/20 is also banned.
American vodka? In the world’s largest producer of the quality vodka?
8. The US chewing tobacco, snuff and tobacco refuse
Did someone at the US Department of Treasury mistook Russia for West Virginia? I am yet to find a tobacco chewing Russian…
9. Saddles
I am not kidding! It is listed under the number 8714100010 of the US department of Commerce document 15 CFR Parts 738 and 746.
10. Grand concert pianos
I think I kinda understand this one. Every educated person in the world surely knows that those Russkies use those pianos only to play military marches. So, every Russian military unit is always accompanied by a crawler-based concert piano.
Well, I decided to propose a few of my own sanctions in order to really weaken Vladimir Putin and his cronies:
· Let’s abolish Mendeleev’s periodic table of chemical elements. His invention must be a devious device to bring the West to its knees.
· Also the use of Pavlov’s conditional reflexes theory should no longer be used as Mr. Pavlov is not a known pacifist.
· And let’s also abandon all those 100 million AK-47s made in the last 74 years. The devilish toy of war was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov who is so evil that even actually met Vladimir Putin once.
Well, should we then keep Maria Sharapova with her balls that don’t bounce?
By the way, the very first attempt of economic sanctions was undertaken by the League of Nations which imposed the ban on coal and oil imports by the Mussolini regime. It was a major failure since Italy simply left the League of Nation and signed direct bilateral agreements with England and France.
…. to be continued
