I recently shared insights on the landscape of U.S. sanctions on Russia for a story in The Washington Post entitled “Why the U.S. Put a $1 Million Bounty on a Russian Yacht’s Alleged Manager.”

U.S. authorities offered a $1 million reward for information that would lead to the arrest or conviction of the man they allege was a managing a $90 million yacht after its staff ordered luxury bathrobes, which stems from federal prosecutors’ assertions that the yacht’s management had been falsely claiming it was working for a boat named “Fanta.” Prosecutors say that the luxury bathrobes were embroidered with a monogram that revealed that the yacht’s true identity was “Tango,” and that Tango was owned by a Russian billionaire under U.S. sanctions that prohibited doing business on his behalf under federal law.

I told The Washington Post the crackdown on intermediaries reflected the natural evolution of the U.S. sanctions campaign in response to Russian adjustments. “It seems to me they have gone through a comprehensive list of the oligarchs, and you can debate whether or not it’s had a meaningful impact on the Russian war effort,” I explained in the article. “Because they’re getting smarter about who’s who, they’re finding other people who play meaningful roles in these transactions, even though they’re not showing up in the headlines.”

The full story in The Washington Post is available online here.

New York Post published its own story on the matter that also included my comments to The Washington Post, entitled “How Monogrammed Bathrobes Led US to Put a $1M Bounty on Russian Yacht Manager’s Head,” also available online.