Ukraine slaps new sanctions on Putin's team and propagandist publishers
Ukraine imposed new sanctions on eight senior Kremlin officials, including special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, as well as five Russian publishing houses for crimes against Ukraine and Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office announced on Nov. 9.
"We will be reaching out to Amazon and other sellers so that they stop selling the literature" of the publishers, Ukraine’s sanctions chief, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, told the Kyiv Independent.
In addition to Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, the list of individuals sanctioned includes Russia’s Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut, Russian Security Service agent Aleksey Komkov, and Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the former chairman of Ukraine’s Constitutional Court.
Tupytskyi escaped Ukraine at the start of the war and was put on the wanted list, but is hiding in Vienna. He has been under U.S. sanctions since 2021.
Kyiv-born Dmitriev has been a key figure in the Kremlin's outreach to the Trump administration, having visited the U.S. last month for talks with American officials. He previously participated in high-level talks in Alaska in August.
These individuals "appropriated agricultural property, grain crops, and cultural heritage sites, conducted information operations against our state, and introduced Russian educational standards with anti-Ukrainian narratives in the occupied territories of Ukraine," the President’s Office wrote in a press statement.
The second decree includes Russian publishing houses Book World, Veche, Tsentrpoligraf, Yauza, and Piter. The publishers are responsible for spreading Russian propaganda globally and promoting anti-Ukrainian sentiment and violence in the Russian-occupied territories, the President's Office wrote.
The sanctions were largely in response to recent Russian sanctions on Ukrainian officials, particularly Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svrydenko, he added. Moscow also sanctioned Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko, Advisor to the Defense Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov, and Economy Minister Oleksiy Sobolev on Nov. 1.
"Russia is trying to prolong the war, expanding its efforts to justify aggression and normalize the occupation of Ukrainian territories," Zelensky said.
"Russia has also recently made a demonstrative political decision to impose sanctions against Ukrainian officials, in particular against the prime minister of Ukraine. Such behavior by Russia deserves far greater global pressure and a broader scope of that pressure," he added.
