Welcome to the multipolar world, New York Times! And to the western ruling “elite”: thank you for sanctioning Russia, you moronic imperialist scum. Now there is an alternative global financial architecture forming that will make western sanctions toothless and ineffectual, even against small countries you used to be able to bully, choke and rob. One step closer to the comprehensive defeat of the arrogant West, one step closer to the complete liberation of the global south.
Issue is, they want those back. So far there’s no indication that their partners in class would actually return anything, so dangling promises like carrots on a stick (the way it’s been done before) may not work. At least, not for some time.
As for investing… I don’t think they will, not really. They will intensify the extraction of wealth from the populace, sure, but invest? Nah. If you could pick between building a mansion on Lake Cuomo in Italy, or building a mansion in Moscow Oblast (with similar prices for land, mind you) - you’ll pick Italy every time. The climate is nicer, there’s stuff indulge in, and they could pretend not to be part of the people they are robbing.
You know, just like their predecessors did in the empire days.
They’re not being given much of a choice to my understanding- between the west blatantly stealing their assets wherever they find them, and their diminishing in influence allowing Putin and the Russian state to strongly “incentivize” the matter and finally reel them in.
The dynamic is less what you describe now, and more “they can choose Russia and their Russian assets- and play by tightening Russian rules- or they can choose to flee to their vacation homes in the west, and have to cut ties in the homeland for the west to allow them to do so.” A very happy dynamic indeed (for everyone who’s not the oligarchs)