Putin’s Blacklisted Rail Ally Sees No Schism in Ostracized Elite

The U.S. and Europe won’t create a division between Russia’s elite and President Vladimir Putin with sanctions over Ukraine, according to Vladimir Yakunin, a long-time ally of the Kremlin leader.

Russia’s Cold-War enemies miscalculated the impact of the penalties, which have instead shown the inner circle that they’ve never been accepted as part of the global economy, Yakunin said in an interview in Moscow.