In the Kremlin

The referendum passed, on the approach of sanctions

March 17, 2014 Alexander Golts

I suspect that many representatives of the so -called Putin elite with bated breath are waiting for today. And not at all because they are so concerned about the final results of the Crimean referendum. With a referendum, everything was clear in advance. According to the Crimean authorities, more than 96 percent of the residents of the peninsula voted for unification with Russia. It is not clear why this was not informed about this with a wonderful result at the time of the beginning of the farce. You could start celebrating yesterday. The USA, Japan, Canada, as well as the countries of the European Union, have already announced the non -recognition of the results of the referendum. And how can the voting results can be recognized, which was announced literally a few days before, having changed the previously made question. As can be considered legitimate “will”, passing under the control of “little green men” with large machine guns that have not been known from where.

It is completely easy to predict the further: our printer who has gone with a stupid will change the constitutional law “On the procedure for adopting in the Russian Federation and the formation in its composition of the new subject”, and at the same time (so to trifle) and the constitution itself. After that, the legislative bodies together with the subjects of the Federation will quickly approve the adoption of Crimea.

All this, I repeat, is more than predictable. But there is something that all this pack of officials, deputies, state businessmen and propagandists probably do not know. Today it should become known which of them will be included in a list of 135 Russian citizens in respect of which the United States and the EU will introduce individual sanctions for violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine. They will be forbidden to enter the USA and EU countries, their accounts in foreign banks will be arrested. The German newspaper Bild reported that in the US Secretary of State John Kerry and the head of the EU diplomacy Katherine Eston, the Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu, the director of the Federal Security Service Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the presidential administration Sergey Ivanov, the Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and the head of the national security council Nikolai Patrushev are included. In addition, sanctions may affect the adviser of Russian President Sergei Glazyev, Presidential assistant Vladislav Surkov, as well as the chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Alexei Pushkov. According to Kommersant, the Black Lists may get the chairman of the Gazprom’s board Alexei Miller and the president of Rosneft Igor Sechin.

That being in the sanctions list, that the absence in it poses the difficult Putin's difficult problems in it. Of course, it is sad to find out that you will now see the stores on the fifth Avenue exclusively in the television portions of the Kiselev program (such as “ordinary Americans in a panic buy fashionable novelties, fearing a nuclear war with Russia”). Even more sadly, to say goodbye to considerable size forever. But those who do not get on the “black list” may also have problems. Here in Russia. After all, whatever one may say, this is a list of a truly national elite certified by the world community, the presence of which the chief chief of the country so dreams of. And the absence in this list can make you think about the loyalty of one or another official. So, a favorite apartment in Miami or a place in the Duma? You can go crazy from such an alternative ...


Photo by ITAR-TASS / ERA / Simferopol