So Switzerland, you care to explain this...?

75 tons of gold has passed through Russia into Switzerland since the beginning of the war in Ukraine as of writing this it's worth five and a half billion dollars on the open market and while Russia is sanctioned by EU countries and Switzerland even banned Russian gold in 2022 Russian gold continues to flow into Switzerland completely legally so how is that possible why is Switzerland not stopping this well when you dig into the facts it turns out this goes way further back than you could even imagine see Switzerland's neutrality can be controversial at times and some may say the country has not always been a champion of ethical Behavior as Switzerland may not be as innocent as you think take a look at these paintings for an example this painting is called the bathroom and rocks by Paul cesan and this is the Sultan by eduard Manet this third one is known as improvisation number 10 by vasili Kandinsky what do these have in common well all three were found quite recently in Switzerland in fact they were looted by wartime Germany Affiliated art dealers at the start of World War II and hidden in the country starting in 1937 German forces began to collect artwork from communities they persecuted under the pretense that they represented degenerative art then hiding them safely behind Swiss borders the plan was to eventually organize a massive public auction in Switzerland at the end of the war despite these Shady happenings you probably know that Switzerland and World War II era Germany were not Allied in any way after all Switzerland has famously been neutral for centuries the Swiss even made plans to defend themselves from a German invasion and at one point they preemptively downed 11 German aircraft hovering over their border during the conflict there they also maintained diplomatic and Commercial relations with the Allies on paper Switzerland's reputation for neutrality is indisputable in fact they haven't entered a single International conflict since 1815 and radical neutrality has been their official policy since 1907. the Swiss are not part of NATO or any other military Alliance are not a member of the EU and only joined the United Nations in 2002 making them the last country in the wild to join until South Sudan became its own country in 2011. even now after Switzerland joined in Western sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine the official Swiss government websites whereas the neutrality has not been broken stating Switzerland's adoption of the EU sanctions does not alter its nationality in any way it does not favor any warring party militarily see Switzerland Prides itself on being one of the most neutral countries in the world and being a safe haven for peace Switzerland cannot by law sell weapons to countries in ongoing conflicts or allow foreign militaries the right to use Swiss soil or Aerospace the Swiss Parliament recently voted a resolution preventing the country from imposing International sanctions on its own or even joining sanctions imposed by other countries that means it can only bandwagon sanctions negotiated by International organizations such as the UN or the EU but while Switzerland claims its neutrality is at the service of peace and prosperity and inspired by humanitarian and pacifist ideals they may not always be as innocent as you might think if you look closely at the facts cracks start to appear which reveal another truth neutrality always comes at a price before the war in Ukraine Swiss gold Imports averaged 20 tons per year in 2023 that shot up to 30 8 tons so what explains that massive Spike an investigation by Swiss public broadcaster srf and newspaper wo said revealed how the country continues to import gold coming from Russia it's more complicated than Switzerland simply importing Russian gold under the table though as it turns out that the UK is complicit in this game too you see before 2019 Russia lifted taxes on gold transactions to encourage massive exports toward the UK we now know that this was in preparation for a war to finance future military expenses and replenish their Central bank's foreign currency reserves in anticipation of international sanctions today Switzerland is absorbing this gold buying it completely legally and sending it to Swiss refineries to remelt it but why remelt it you may ask well remelted gold bars lose their seals of traceability and are re-stamped with Swiss seals by doing so immense amounts of ethically problematic gold are effectively laundered yet gold bars aren't the only way the country is profiting from Russia's current situation despite Switzerland's public missers to seize the assets of oligarchs many seem to find ways to sneak in and hide their belongings from the eu's more restrictive sanctions Russian billionaires like Victor wexlenberg Andrei marichenko Roman Abramovich Dimitri pimpiansky and even Putin's alleged lover Alina kabeva have been living in Switzerland and have set up their businesses over the years it might shock you to learn that the Russian oligarchs targeted by Western sanctions are living comfortably in Switzerland thanks to so-called Swiss golden Visas so how is this possible well Switzerland is one of those countries where you can obtain residency or even citizenship by living and working in the country or by investment all any non-eu citizen with a clean criminal record needs to do is pay a lump tax ranging from 200 to 600 000 Swiss Francs equal to around 230 to 690 000 to gain citizenship and prove they don't needs of work to stay financially afloat of course this is hardly an option for the average Joe but it's a very easy legal Gateway for Russian oligarchs to sneak into the West while enjoying the full protection of Swiss law the result is that Switzerland hosts at least 85 Russian billionaires through the golden Visa programs and while other European countries have offered golden visas the Swiss government appears to lag behind when it comes to restricting the program at least for Russian citizens the main reason is that immigration policies are not controlled by the central government in Switzerland instead each of the 26 Swiss continues has a different immigration policy in place only sharing broad guidelines on a national level and the reason the central government can't step in and expel all oligarchs is that the Swiss Constitution guarantees the independence of each Canton so it's illegal for them to do so all in all of the 150 billion Swiss Francs circulating into the Swiss banking system from Russian assets before the war it is estimated that 46 billion Swiss Francs still remain in circulation this figure includes all the assets held by Russian people in real estate or industrial activities and stock Investments so while Ukrainian cities are showered in Russian bombs Switzerland Harbor's Russia's ruining class and may legally profit from Putin's pre-war gold sale but this brings the question are they really doing anything wrong at least from their perspective after all they are a neutral country they don't get involved in other countries business from a Swiss perspective there is nothing wrong with making the best of a conflict where you're not a participant and in this period there is a historical precedent to training with both sides of a conflict without getting involved during World War II Switzerland became richer while the rest of the continent experienced massive destruction and suffering as a neutral country the Swiss soon found themselves surrounded by Axis powers like wartime Italy and Germany and occupied France as the war continued Switzerland slowly increased trading with the axes exports to Germany especially of raw materials electric energy machinery and vehicles skyrocketed at the height of the war raging a grand total of 1.1 1 billion Swiss Francs in 1942 at the same time Switzerland continued to maintain good relations with allies sitting on the fence of this massive conflict some might say Switzerland was cornered by the axes and merely chose between collaboration and Invasion which is probably true but it's also no secret that the Swiss economy profited from this thorny situation and its government ability to maintain ambiguity throughout the war the Swiss National Bank bought tons of gold from wartime Germany effectively pumping funds into the German war machine in today's money it is estimated that Switzerland bought 1.7 billion US dollars of German gold which if you recall is less than a third of the value of gold indirectly acquired from Russia Today this helped replenish German gold reserves and allowed the Swiss franc to become the only freely exchangeable major currency throughout the war in turn the Swiss currency and the collaboration of Swiss financial institutions may have allowed big companies on the Allies side to buy has sanctions on the axis allowing further trade lesions with Germany and Italy I should dig deeper into the conduct of Swiss banks you find extensive use of the country's Infamous banking secrecy laws which were strengthened in the 1930s and only abolished in 2014. much of the gold acquired from the German bad guys and the cash flowing into Swiss banks were later found to come from conqueror territories wealth confiscated from families or even the coins and jewelry taken from concentration camp victims claiming the unprovability of the Gold's origin Swiss banks refused to return the majority of the gold to the Allies after the war only seeding 12 percent of the total accumulated wealth in the 1946 Washington agreement what's different today is that the Swiss are not continuing to buy gold from Russia they are merely purchasing pre-war Russian gold from the UK one might say that it was English money that effectively financed the war in Ukraine while Switzerland is just profiting from it by repaying the UK on the other hand the thought of a Nation thriving off other countries troubles understandably makes some heads Shake while the controversial role that Swiss institutions played in World War II is much debated Switzerland's price neutrality has had a few notable and problematic exceptions over the years in 2005 researchers discovered that despite officially condemning the racist apartheid regime from 1963 to 1968 trade between Swiss and South African companies continued until the end of the Cold War but it gets much much worse than that starting in the 70s the Swiss effectively exported highly sensitive technology to the apartheid regime that actively supported the construction of its six nuclear bombs in deals officially struck by private companies but actually backed by the Swiss secret services today secret missions hiding behind the unsuspecting mask of Swiss companies appeared to still be active tactics of the Swiss intelligence service in 2018 crypto AG a Communications encryption firm low located in the heart of Switzerland appears to have sold the coding equipment to countries including Iran India and Pakistan with modifications to allow the CIA and German secret services to break the encrypted Communications of these Target States but one of the most controversial parts of Swiss nationality is weapon exports thanks to a single rule Switzerland can make their neutral diplomatic stunts suddenly more flexible you see according to the Swiss neutrality policy Switzerland is allowed to sell arms and military vehicles to any country provide the country is not involved in any open conflicts this also includes a Prohibition on selling weapons to countries that intend to re-export them to Warring States for instance while Switzerland has officially endorsed virtually all the sanctions imposed by the West on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine the Swiss government refuses to send weapons to Ukraine directly or even sell weapons to any country intending to later send them to Ukraine despite this formal rigidity in practice the Swiss are quite capable of finding ways to deliver weapons wherever they want to while the Swiss Parliament vetoed a proposed exception to the neutrality policy last year that would have allowed Germany to re-export Swiss ammunitions and battle tanks to Ukraine the government easily got around this by selling 25 if there per tanks to Germany to officially substitute those previously sent to Ukraine this fractures once more how Switzerland can cherry-pick the application of its neutrality policy which some people might see as problematic just recently in 2015 Switzerland effectively sold spare parts of air defense systems fighter jets and battle tanks to Saudi Arabia Egypt Bahrain and the UAE that is despite the fact that they were all involved in the war in Yemen a conflict that at the time had been going on for four years already with no sign of relief while technically not active weapons these sales could still account as effective support to an ongoing International conflict in the same way in 2003 Switzerland allowed U.S military forces to enter Swiss Aerospace officially for humanitarian and medical flights but also it seems to facilitate surveillance missions over Iraq in preparation for the upcoming invasion of the country all in all this covert activity means good business to put things into perspective in 2020 Swiss company is exported around 965 million dollars worth of military goods making Switzerland the seventh largest exporter of weapons in the wild this means that Switzerland made up 0.7 percent of all International military trade which is quite impressive for a country of just 9 million inhabitants once you consider that the first five exporters represented 62 percent of the total not to mention the fact that the Swiss have refused to fight anymore themselves for over 200 years All Things Considered Switzerland is pretty unique in its ability to build such a distinctive diplomatic character and uphold its neutrality throughout all the wars of the modern era this is guaranteed peace and prosperity for the Swiss and indeed allowed the country to become a safe haven for war refugees around Europe and quite often an effective International Arbiter to Foster World Peace but neutrality comes at a price that can sometimes be ethically controversial so what do you think of all this leave a comment down below but that's it for this video thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: OBF

Views: 237,602

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Id: 5p-suGLfwg0

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2023