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Baffling move

May 17,2014 - Last updated at May 17,2014

Targeting the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin with financial and economic sanctions had many observers scratching their heads in search of an explanation.

Why are the oligarchs in Moscow be punished for something that the leadership of the country has done?

US President Barack Obama decided to “punish” Russia for its role in the Ukraine conflict by applying sanctions on Putin’s closest business “associates” instead of going against the Russian government, a baffling move.

Why personalise the conflict over Ukraine when it is clear that the Russian Federation has aggrandisement plans, at the expense of its neighbouring countries.

Obama’s reasoning must have been that hurting those people will, sooner or later, negatively affect Putin as well.

One explanation for this rather strange tool to inflict damage is Washington’s conviction that the power base of the Russian leader lies in this inner circle of targeted, but so far, this has not affected either the Russian leader or his close associates.

For the most part, the targeted people did not seem to visibly care much.

Other Western countries joined forces with the US, adopting similar sanctions, and hinted that their punitive actions will become more severe as the situation in Ukraine deteriorates.

The Russian leader does not seem perturbed by the declared sanctions, which he dismissed as “childish”.

The situation in Ukraine did get worse, witnessing fighting between separatists loyal to Russia and Ukrainian forces loyal to Kiev.

The big puzzle is why have similar sanctions not been imposed on the leadership of the pro-Russia rebellion in eastern Ukraine.

The rebellion in east of Ukraine does not seem spontaneous, as it first appeared. There are increasing signs that some oligarchs there, interested in breaking away from Kiev, have been behind the referendums all along.

This may suggest that the web of the Western sanctions would soon widen to include powerful people in the east of Ukraine, unless the scheduled presidential elections will save the situating.

The projected presidential election, scheduled for May 25, could be the final act in the Ukrainian drama if the ongoing negotiations behind the scene succeed.

Only the election of a neutral president could help avoid conflict and preserve the territorial unity of the country.

That’s what all sides are now counting on, including Obama and Putin.

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