US hits Russian oligarchs, officials with new sanctions
Long-planned measures not tied to any one action, aides say
The Trump administration imposed new sanctions Friday on 38 individuals and companies close to Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to the Kremlin’s worldwide pattern of “malign activities,” according to senior officials.
The seven oligarchs include Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate who had past business dealings with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, who has been indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller on money-laundering charges.
Many of the targets are individuals and businesses with ties to Russia’s energy sector, including those linked to state-owned Gazprom. The senior administration officials said the goal was to hit those who have benefited financially from Putin’s power.
“Actions have consequences,” said the officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. “Today’s announcement is a result of decisions that the Russian government have made in choosing a path of confrontation.”
The sanctions freeze any assets the individuals or firms have in U.S. jurisdictions and prohibit Americans from doing business with them. The officials said, however, that the administration would provide guidance to Americans who may currently have business with them about how to wind down that business and avoid violating the sanctions.
Also on the list:
❚ Vladimir Bogdanov, director general of Surgutneftegaz, a Russia-based oil company.
❚ Suleiman Kerimov, a member of the Russian Federal Council, who was detained in France in 2017 for allegedly trying to bring in hundreds of millions of euros in suitcases.
❚ Igor Rotenberg, an oil, gas and drilling magnate. ❚ Kirill Shamalov, purported husband of Putin’s daughter, and an oil and gas baron.
❚ Andrei Skoch, deputy of the Russian state Duma, or parliament, who the officials said has “long-standing ties to Russian organized criminal groups.”
❚ Viktor Vekselberg, an energy sector baron, founder and chairman of the Renova Group, comprised of asset management companies and individual funds. Top executives of the company were arrested in 2016 for allegedly bribing officials connected to a power generation project in Russia.
These Russian billionaires, known as oligarchs, got rich buying state-owned enterprises in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union or later under Putin’s rule. The United States is going after them in a bid to shatter their support for the Russian leader.
The senior officials said the new measures, which have been in the works since the past administration, were not in response to any special event or issue “but the totality of the Russian government’s increasingly brazen pattern of malign activity across the world.”
The officials singled out acts such as the annexation of Crimea, the supplying of weapons to the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad and the meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, as well as money laundering.
Among the firms sanctioned is Rosoboronek sport, a state-owned Russian weapons trading company. Officials said the firm has long-standing, ongoing ties to the Syrian government, with billions of dollars’ worth of weapons sales over more than a decade.
Among the government officials on the list are Vladimir Kolokoltsev, minister of internal affairs and general police of the Russian Federation; Alexey Dyumin, governor of Russia’s Tula region, who previously headed the Special Operations Forces; and Mikehail Fradkov, president of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, a major research and analytical center established in 1992 by then-President Boris Yeltsin.
Also included are Timur Valiulin, the head of the General Administration for Combating Extremism within Russia’s Ministry of Interior; Evgeniy Shkolov, a Putin aide; and Konstantin Kosachev; chairperson of the Council of the Federation Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The senior Trump administration officials said the individuals and entities on the list have “disproportionally benefited by bad decisions by the Kremlin on their behalf.”