Putin says US sanctions list targets all Russians

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin says a list of officials and businessmen close to the Kremlin published by the US has in effect targeted all Russian people.

The list names 210 top Russians as part of a sanctions law aimed at punishing Moscow for meddling in the US election.

However, the US stressed those named were not subject to new sanctions.

The government was required to draw up the list after Congress passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (Caatsa) in August.

The law aimed to punish Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and its actions in Ukraine.

Congress wanted the list to name and shame those who had benefited from close association with President Putin and put them on notice that they could be targeted for sanctions, or more sanctions, in the future.

The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Eliot Engel, accused the Trump administration of letting “Russia off the hook again” by not taking substantial action.

Informally known as the “Putin list”, the unclassified section has 210 names, 114 of them in the government or linked to it, or key businessmen. The other 96 are oligarchs apparently determined more by the fact they are worth more than $1bn than their close ties to the Kremlin.

Most of Mr Putin’s longstanding allies are named, many of them siloviki (security guys). They include the spy chiefs Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service (FSB) - which Mr Putin used to run - and Sergei Naryshkin of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

The men who control Russia’s energy resources are listed: Gazprom chief Alexei Miller, Rosneft chief Igor Sechin and other oil and gas executives, along with top bankers like Bank Rossiya manager Yuri Kovalchuk.

The oligarchs include Kirill Shamalov, who is reported to be Mr Putin’s son-in-law, although the Kremlin has never confirmed his marriage to Katerina Tikhonova, nor even that she is the president’s daughter.

Internationally known oligarchs are there too, such as those with stakes in top English football clubs: Alisher Usmanov (Arsenal) and Roman Abramovich (Chelsea).

However, there is a classified version said to include information detailing allegations of involvement in corrupt activities.

The law limited the amount of money Americans could invest in Russian energy projects and made it more difficult for US companies to do business with Russia. Earlier on Monday, the US government argued the Caatsa law had already pushed governments around the world to cancel deals with Russia worth billions, suggesting that more sanctions were not required.