US sanctions Putin's son in law

[Jolly_Penguin]

Just saw this article on CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/russia-sanctions-oligarchs/index.html

Apparently the USA has sanctioned a number of rich people in Russia and now they are doing it to Putin's son in law.

Do you expect Putin to take that personally and strike out at the USA?

 

[Elixir]

Just saw this article on CNN

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/06/politics/russia-sanctions-oligarchs/index.html

Apparently the USA has sanctioned a number of rich people in Russia and now they are doing it to Putin's son in law.

Do you expect Putin to take that personally and strike out at the USA?

Maybe he'll sanction Donny Junior and/or Jared. I hear he's not real fond of trannies...

 

[Copernicus]

Note that this topic is already under discussion in the Russiagate thread: https://talkfreethought.org/showthread.php?10591-RussiaGate&p=526673#post526673

The CNN article does mention in passing that Kirill Shamalov is Putin's son-in-law, but that is not going to be the main thing that bothers Putin, who helped Trump to get elected in order to end the sanctions. Now he is going to have to find ways to pacify some of the most powerful kleptocrats in his little empire. The son-in-law may be among the least of those in his own estimation. Deripaska, a major player in the Russiagate scandal, may be much more important to him. It will be interesting to see how he retaliates.

 

[Copernicus]

BTW, it turns out that Kirill Shamalov is no longer Putin's son-in-law. He separated from Katarina Tikhonova, Putin's youngest daughter, in January, 2018. He is reported to have lost 50% of his wealth as punishment. However, the scandal regarding him has little to do with Putin. Shamalov's father, Nikolay Shamalov, and businesses had been placed on an earlier sanctions list. What the father did to get around sanctions, apparently, was transfer ownership of his businesses to his son, although the father apparently remained in control. Putting the son on the new sanctions list apparently put the father back in financial jeopardy.

In any case, I expect that the sanctions will not really be hurting the oligarchs as much as they should. They can transfer assets around and create new companies at will, but these sanctions will certainly have some impact on their wealth. Otherwise, Putin would not be so desperate to have them lifted.