Putin chief aide mocks U.S. Postal Service mistake as sanctions hit man with same name
MOSCOW. April 12 (Interfax) - Russian President Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Sergei Ivanov, on Saturday met with a journalist who had been denied a purchase from an American online store because his first and last names coincide with those of the Kremlin official, who is on the U.S. sanctions list.
"I'm very sorry that my namesake has been hit by the sanctions against me, - there are hundreds of thousands of Sergei Ivanovs in our country, as everyone knows. It's sad that my namesake and fellow St. Petersburger has fallen victim to the silliness of the U.S. Postal Service, but there's no remedy for stupidity," the presidential aide said at the meeting with the other Sergei Ivanov during a basketball contest in Moscow.
Ivanov the Kremlin chief of staff played down the sanctions against him.
"Due to my principal profession - something one can't erase from your records, as everyone knows, - I worked in the foreign intelligence services of the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation for 25 years. By the time I finished my service in 1998, entry to an overwhelming majority of Western countries was barred to me. So that's nothing new to me, I'm used to it and take it absolutely easy. Believe me, these sanctions will have no effect either on my work or on my life," he said.
The other Ivanov, a St. Petersburg-based reporter for the Metro newspaper, ordered a pair of trainer shoes from a U.S. online store but received a notice from it saying he was on a list of persons who are not allowed to use mail services on U.S. territory. Ivanov then had someone else make the order for him.
After learning about this, Ivanov the Kremlin official sent a letter to the journalist saying he was surprised the sanctions had gone the wrong way. At Saturday's meeting, he presented his namesake with a basketball "as a token of gratitude for your fortitude and as a souvenir."
The ball was painted as leopard fur and bore the inscription "Land of Leopards" - Ivanov heads the board of trustees of the Eurasian Center for Leopard Preservation and Rehabilitation.