WASHINGTON — Russians living in Miami and the French Riviera “who cannot do without foie gras, oysters or so-called gender freedoms” are traitors to their homeland, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, dismissing the effects of Western sanctions on Russian nationals with real estate assets overseas.
U.S. and European sanctions have decimated the value of the Russian ruble since Putin ordered a brutal military invasion of Ukraine three weeks ago, sending the nation’s economy into a tailspin.
Western powers are betting “on national traitors — on those who earn money here, with us, but live there,” Putin said, speaking at a meeting with regional leaders on the economic fallout from the crisis.
He accused Russian expatriates living abroad as “ready to sell their own mother,” sympathizing more with the West because they are “mentally located precisely there, and not here, not with our people, not with Russia.”
“I am not at all judging those who have a villa in Miami or the French Riviera, who cannot do without foie gras, oysters or so-called gender freedoms,” he said. “This is what they think — in their opinion — a sign of belonging to a higher caste, to a higher race.”
His remarks come as U.S. and European sanctions enforcers are working to hunt down the assets of Russian oligarchs parked overseas, often under the names of confidantes or siphoned through offshore bank accounts and shell companies.
The whereabouts of Putin’s own wealth remain a mystery. Putin himself was sanctioned by the Treasury Department last week — an exceedingly rare move against a sitting head of state — with all entities owned directly or indirectly by Putin within U.S. jurisdiction now blocked.
A senior U.S. official declined to comment when asked whether the administration knows where the Russian leader keeps his money.
Miami has one of the nation’s largest Russian communities, concentrated on the coastal strip of Sunny Isles and the exclusive enclave of Fisher Island, and has been identified alongside Manhattan as one of the two greatest hot spots for illicit real estate investment in the United States.
In addition to sanctioning senior Russian officials and oligarchs, the Biden administration has frozen the assets of the Russian central bank, sanctioned the nation’s largest banks, and removed them from the world’s largest financial transactions system — all moves that have been replicated by European powers.
The White House has also banned the import of Russian oil and shut off Russian commercial flight access to U.S. airspace.
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