Putin brands long-awaited US sanctions list as a ‘hostile step’
● Trump accused of Russia ‘free pass’ ● List based on Forbes rankings
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the Trump administration had made a “hostile step” by publishing a list of Russian businessmen and politicians as part of a sanctions law against Moscow.
The long-awaited US publication appears to be mainly a list of people in Russian government, along with 96 “oligarchs” from a Forbes magazine ranking of Russian billionaires.
The list ordered by Congress in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign had induced fear among rich Russians it could lead to US sanctions or being informally blacklisted in the global financial system.
But the US surprised observers by announcing it had decided not to punish anyhad body under the new sanctions, at least for now. Some US politicians accused President Donald Trump of giving Russia a free pass, fuelling further questions about whether the president was unwilling to confront Moscow.
Mr put in referred to the list as a “hostile step”, but said Moscow does not want to make the situation even worse.
“We were waiting for this list to come out and I’m not going to hide it, we were going to take steps in response and, mind you, serious steps that could push our relations to the nadir,” he said. “But we’re going to refrain from taking these steps for now.”
The Russian president said he did not expect the publication to have any impact, but expressed dismay at the scope of the officials and business people listed.
“Ordinary Russian citizens, employees and entire industries are behind each of those people and companies, so all 146 million people have essentially been put on this list,” Mr Putin said. “What is the point of this? I don’t understand.”
Russia hawks in Congress pushed the administration to include certain names, while Russian businessmen hired lobbyists to keep them off. The list of 114 Russian politicians included the whole of Putin’s administration, as listed by the Kremlin on its website, plus the Russian cabinet, all top law enforcement officials and chief executives of the main state-controlled companies.
Mr Putin even joked he felt “slighted” his name wasn’t there. A companion list of 96 “oligarchs” is a carbon copy of the Forbes magazine’s Russian billionaires’ rankings, only arranged alphabetically. It makes no distinction between those who are tied to the Kremlin and those who are not.
Some of the people on the list have long fallen out with the Kremlin or are widely considered to have built their fortunes independently of the Russian government.
Officials said more names, including those of less senior politicians and businesspeople worth less than $1 billion (£71 million) are on a classified version of the list being provided to Congress. Drawing on US intelligence, the Treasury Department also finalised a list of at least partially stateowned companies in Russia, but that list too was classified and sent only to Congress.
The idea of the seven-page unclassified document, as envisioned by Congress, was to name and shame those believed to be benefiting from Mr Putin’s tenure as the US works to isolate his government diplomatically and economically.
Every top Russian official except for Mr Putin is on the list of 114 senior political figures. The oligarchs list includes tycoons Roman Abramovich and Mikhail Prokhorov, who challenged Mr Putin in the 2012 election. Aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, a figure in the Russia investigation over his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, is included. The list shows the United States views the entire Russian government as enemies, Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.