[jeroenhd]

They may not be normal civilians, but many of Putin's friends targeted by sanctions are not government officials, which does make them civilians. In other cases sanctions are targeted at government officials personally rather than the parts of government they influence, like targeting their side business, their stock, or their personal property.

There are sanctions targeting governments specifically, but usually government sanctions also target civilians. You can't exactly expect a sanctioned government to be transparent, it'll hide its government business under company names if you let it.

[mschuster91]

> but many of Putin's friends targeted by sanctions are not government officials

That's the thing in a crony dictatorship: these people might not hold public office in name, but in practice they act under direct license, authority and orders of the dictator. We're already seeing this in Hungary, where close friends of the local de-facto-dictator Viktor Orban control almost all media and absolutely use that ownership to further entrench Orban's rule - it's hard to achieve political change when the media simply doesn't care about you.

And now, we're seeing the beginnings in the US, just from another angle - public kowtowing and open extortion, such as with Jimmy Kimmel who got cancelled after a threat to block a corporate merger, and it's not the first time either. And no, the fact that Disney walked back after their stock price took a decent dip doesn't mean that this is the last time such an event will take place.

[JumpCrisscross]

> many of Putin's friends targeted by sanctions are not government officials, which does make them civilians

By that definition Putin is a civilian.

More broadly: plenty of sanctions explicitly target military-only kit. Those are not “designed to hurt civilians,” though I guess a civilian working in a munitions factory might lose their job.