Lawyer Ilya Novikov: The government has completely turned the sanctions mechanism into a cringe

Lawyer Ilya Novikov writes on his Facebook page that the authorities have completely transformed the sanctions mechanism into a tool for political vendetta, and this is already obvious to everyone. Meanwhile, President Zelenskyy is hiding behind the collective responsibility of the National Security and Defense Council, and sanctions are being imposed without legal basis.

“On Saturday, May 2, a decree imposing sanctions against the first head of the Presidential Administration and former close friend of Zelenskyy, Andriy Bohdan, appeared on the Ukrainian president’s website. Bohdan himself has already commented that this is Zelenskyy’s personal revenge for disseminating the Mindych tapes, and the formal basis for the sanctions was ‘systemic discrediting of the state’s top leadership,’” Novikov recalled.

“If the sanctions against Andriy Bohdan hadn’t appeared immediately after the new round of Mindichgate, I would have thought he was embellishing a bit, and that in fact there was some standard ‘in the course of production… established’ construction inside. But the context of the appearance of Decree No. 358/2026 seems such that Bohdan’s inside information seems plausible. On April 29, a new series of Mindich tapes was released, which is rightly or wrongly linked to Bohdan – and instead of resting, all these busy people (8 ministers, the Chairman of the Council, the National Bank, the Financial Monitoring Service, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and for some reason the President of the Academy of Sciences) were once again gathered at the President’s office over the weekend to urgently vote on sanctions against Bohdan. These are well-known symptoms; in the case of Poroshenko’s sanctions in February 2025, there was a similar rush, and we have already investigated the reasons for this in detail – Zelenskyy was then stamping his feet and demanding that the decree be ready for signature that same evening. There was no time. “For a normal procedure, or for any procedure at all. They cobbled it together from what they had,” notes Ilya Novikov.

“If this is truly true, then Ukraine has joined the club of post-Soviet countries that enjoys the ‘foreign agent’ status—along with Russia and Georgia. Criticizing, insulting, and even discrediting the top leadership of a democratic country is possible, even during wartime. If the president can freeze your bank accounts for discrediting the president, then it’s too late to discredit him; you should have tried harder earlier,” the lawyer quips.

He also recalled that in 2014, when the sanctions law was passed, the historical economic ties between Ukraine and Russia made it essential to have a mechanism to selectively block Russian and pro-Russian assets in Ukraine. After 2022, sanctions against Russian businesses without assets in Ukraine became a mere imitation of vigorous activity.

“Ukraine’s foreign partners don’t duplicate our sanctions, and Russian shadow fleet vessels don’t enter Ukrainian ports or get arrested. However, decrees imposing sanctions against Russians are proliferating, the National Security and Defense Council is overloaded with work, the registry is growing, and Zelenskyy regularly reports on sanctions-related victories,” Novikov states.

“Sanctions are ineffective against Russians, but they are still effective against Ukrainian citizens, particularly those remaining in Ukraine. Consequently, sanctions currently exist simultaneously on two levels. Internationally, they are completely powerless against Russia and have become a PR toy for the president. Within Ukraine, they are effective; here, they are not a toy, but a fully-fledged weapon that Zelenskyy does not hesitate to use against enemies – and former friends. It’s a remarkable weapon, with unlimited ammunition, virtually no recoil, and anyone who doesn’t like it should keep quiet, or they’ll get it for discrediting the leadership under martial law,” Novikov notes.

“In reality, the lack of impact is an illusion. Some people don’t like Poroshenko, others don’t like Bohdan; you can ignore individual issues. But the overall picture is already unfavorable for the president. People generally see that Zelenskyy is imposing sanctions on a whim, while simultaneously hiding behind the National Security and Defense Council. He has never initiated sanctions as president himself, although he has the legal right to do so. It’s always ‘I was informed, the National Security and Defense Council voted.’ Every time sanctions lead to a scandal, members of the National Security and Defense Council, ministers, and others involved are expected to play along with the president and pretend nothing out of the ordinary has happened, even if that means making a fool of themselves,” the lawyer writes.

“Everyone involved in the process, at every stage, must then pretend that they truly believed what was written in the sanctions draft. There’s almost no need to pretend in the case of Kuklachev and other Russian clowns—everyone already agrees that they’re bad people and deserve any problems. Feigning faith in the legitimacy of sanctions, as in the case of Poroshenko, is already difficult; everyone understands that the main factor there is Zelenskyy’s hatred. The gray zone in which ministers and members of the National Security and Defense Council can pretend they don’t understand that they’re carrying out the president’s illegal wishes has shrunk to a tiny speck. The minister can no longer hide within it; something is coming to light. But the audience can still pretend they don’t see it,” writes Ilya Novikov.

“The sanctions against Bohdan are important because they’ve effectively exhausted the limits of ‘controlled pity.’ It’s not that Bohdan is a good person, but that Zelenskyy, driven by personal emotions, was in such a rush to sign the decree that he didn’t give his accomplices time to create anything for the executors, write documents that could be presented as justification, or convene the National Security and Defense Council according to the usual schedule. The president was fired up—and the rest is irrelevant,” the lawyer notes.

“But sooner or later, the cringe limit is exceeded, and everything suddenly collapses. And hysterical cries of ‘everyone who’s against Zelensky works for Putin!!!’ no longer help,” Novikov writes.

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