I live in Russia. Most of Russian people were robbed in February/March of 2022. Those Russians who had western stocks / shares bought in Moscow and St. Petersburg stock exchanges lost everything.
In March, my broker informed me that Northern Trust downgraded all Russian stock to €0. It's a small percentage of the index funds, but gone nonetheless.
So if Western shareholders lost access to Russian shares, and Russian shareholders lost access to Western shares, that leaves the question who now owns all those "abandoned" shares! I'm seriously curious, because (most of) the companies that created the shares still exist, so somewhere on the planet those shares still have value. Who benefits from people losing access?