Switzerland pledged to punish Russian tycoons, but up to now, their contributions to common efforts are thought to be negligible.

After Switzerland announced February that they would participate in the European Union's sanctions efforts (EU) for Russian and Zug bang tankers seemed to become an obvious place to hunt targets.

The streets here concentrate countless offices of the companies founded by the richest people in Russia, next to the headquarters of the two key natural gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 of the same set

Swiss President Ignazio Cassis spoke at a press conference in the city of Bern in February.

Many Russian billionaires have houses or business establishments in Zug that the local opposition party led some people to visit the home of Russian tycoons.

However, punishment of Moscow is not an easy task for 6 local officials assigned this responsibility.

Heinz Tannler, Director of Zug, said they had to struggle with the names written in Russian and often could not understand the content of the 300 -page list that the central government provided.

According to him, they also struggled with the impact on the local economy.

Finally, officials found exactly a company in about 30,000 registered companies at Zug that they believed that owned or controlled by an individual was punished.

Zug's slow start is an example of illustrating the whole country.

80% of Russia's goods are traded through Switzerland, mainly through Zug and Geneva.

4 months since the Swiss government began to execute sanctions, 6.8 billion USD of Russian financial assets were frozen, along with 15 other houses and real estate, according to the Secretariat of the House

Meanwhile, EU countries have froze a total of 14 billion USD of assets believed by Russian tanks, including funds, boats, helicopters and real estate, besides more than 20 billion USD.

Jersey island alone has blocked more than $ 7 billion in assets that they think related to Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich.

However, the Swiss government abandoned criticisms, emphasizing that the application of EU sanctions has marked a historical change and they are doing everything that can be hunted.

The headquarters of Nord Stream Pipeline operates in Zug, Switzerland.

It is clear that the mass of sanctions on Russia and Belarus, as well as the speed of applying them, created certain challenges for executable agencies, in Switzerland as well as other places, one, one

Despite its reputation as a global financial center, Swiss management agencies are having a significant obstacle to limited resources.

According to Western diplomats, their work is also not effective by an old structure problem: the business activities of the companies are kept confidential, making it difficult to determine the final ownership.

Swiss bankers and financial transparent campaigners say that billions of dollars in Russian customers in recent years have been renamed for spouses or children.

Many tycoons are owners of Zug businesses that have not been touched by sanctions, including Abramovich, EVRAZ's largest shareholder, Russian steel mining and production company with branches in the state.

Not far from Zug, in Winterthur, the headquarters of Sulzer, a technical company owned by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg owns 48.8% of the shares.

When Poland punished Sulzer's activities, the Swiss Embassy at Warsaw mobilized the Polish government to reverse the move but failed, according to a Polish government official and the Swiss Foreign Ministry.

Sulzer said that the decision from Poland was wrong because Vekselberg was just a small shareholder, not owned and controlled the company.

SECO spokesman said the agency was closely related to British officials to discuss sanctions, but were not bound by their assessment.

US and European officials say they are relying on the Swiss government to find out which companies or real estate companies in the country belong to Russian tycoons punished to freeze them.

According to Swiss legal precedent, lawyers can open a company on behalf of customers and use law -privileges - customers to prevent officials from revealing the real owner.

Swiss business registration regulation does not require real owners to list companies, a hole used by Russian businessmen or anywhere else to hide its ownership of property.

Tannler, Zug's State Finance Director, also faced criticisms that local officials were not deep enough to search for names on the sanctions list.