By Stephen Levy
The United States began its sanctions program to discourage
the conflict in Ukraine by targeting individuals. In March 2014, the President issued a stream of
Executive Orders targeting first individuals directly violating the
territorial integrity of Ukraine, then moving onto those who “undermine[d]
democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine”. In the State Department’s
own words, the United States is directly targeting “individuals in Putin’s
inner circle” to “send a strong message to the Russian government that there
are consequences for their actions”.
To emphasize this strategy, the U.S. government has gone in
search of both the financial assets and the playthings of the implicated
Russians. The Department of Homeland Security announced
it was on the hunt for “shiny toys” owned by the implicated individuals in the
United States. Homeland Security’s Foreign Corruption Investigations Group was
tasked with investigating the sanctioned persons, with the Treasury Department
to freeze the assets. Similar efforts
have propped up through the European Union as well.
Has that actually taken place? The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly,
is a resounding “kind of.”
