Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

How U.S. sanctions hope to strike at Putin’s allies without actually targeting Putin

Washington Post

On Monday, President Obama released a list of individuals sanctioned for their involvement in Crimea’s vote to join the Russian Federation. Of the 10 names on the list, seven are Russian.

One person, however, was notable by his absence: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

While Putin’s name appears three times in the list, U.S. officials have explained that it would be “extraordinary” for them to target a head of state in such a case, despite calls to do so from people such as Bill Browder, one of the key supporters of the Magnitsky Act.

The list does strike at Putin, however, by targeting some of his key allies. These people may not be household names in the United States or Western Europe, but they hold real power in Russia, which may not be apparent from the one-line descriptions given by the White House.

For starters, there’s Vladislav Surkov, described as a presidential aide to Putin. Surkov is notorious in Russia-watching circles as the theater director who later became a PR man for Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He eventually came to the Kremlin and used his understanding of publicity and image to help sustain and strengthen Putin’s presidency, with some even suggesting that he was the real power behind the throne. He was called “Putin’s Rasputin” in the London Review of Books, and the “Gray Cardinal” by many others. While he apparently fell out of favor after anti-Putin protests in 2012, he was brought back last fall to help deal with Ukraine and other situations.

Then there’s Sergei Glazyev, once a fierce critic of Putin and even a rival to his presidency, who was brought into the president’s fold in 2012, and is described as a “Presidential Adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Glazyev was tasked with developing the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, a precursor to the “Eurasian Union” that is said to be close to Putin’s heart. It had been hoped that Ukraine might join the Customs Union, and Glazyev had acted as Putin’s main emissary to the country over 2013. He had issued a number of warnings to Ukrainians as the Euromaidan protests progressed.