Despite President Trump’s recent talk of desiring better relations with Russia, the administration seems to be set to continue imposing harsh measures on high-profile Russians, a policy which has brought bilateral relations to their worst level since the Cold War.
Sources are being quoted in the media as saying that this week, the US will impose a new round of sanctions against various Russian oligarchs, including some with ties to President Putin and others that have no apparent such ties.
The sanctions are nominally another move against Russian “meddling.” though the US seems to hit Russians with a new round of sanctions fairly regularly, and rarely has more than a very token reason to sanction any specific targeted person.
Perhaps even more concerningly, this new round of sanctions is being reported to be the most intensive sanctions yet. The last round of sanctions were imposed on March 15, when the US sanctioned 19 Russians.
The USA and the UK seem to be under the impression that the “oligarchs” are friends of the Russian president. It is the USA via the IMF that in the 1990s sold off the huge national assets for a pittance to oligarchs, who then went to places like London, where they still are, and 40 court cases are now in place to try to repatriate their billions to Russia. Putin was the one who stopped them in their tracks and got a lot of the money returned.
Who in the US would care if Pelosi, Bezos or the Koch brothers were under Russian sanctions? Neither ordinary Russians, nor ordinary Americans really care whether the ultra wealthy are prevented from going shopping.