United States releases list of 210 top Russians eligible for sanctions
The list was put out under a law that is aimed at punishing Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
The United States on Monday released a list of Russian politicians and business leaders eligible for sanctions under a law that is aimed at punishing Russia for its alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections.
The list, informally known as “the Putin list” features the names of many senior members in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration. Of the 210 names on the list, 114 are in the government or are linked to it, while the other 96 are “oligarchs” whose worth is more than $1 billion.
The Treasury Department said that inclusion of people in this list did not mean that they were subject to sanctions or restriction right away.
It features Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and officials from the Russian intelligence agencies such as Alexander Bortnikov of the Federal Security Service and Sergei Naryshkin of the Foreign Intelligence Service.
Chief executives of state-owned companies such as Rosneft’s Igor Sechin, Gazprom’s Alexei Miller, and top bankers, including Bank Rossiya’s Yuri Kovalchuk, Skerbank’s German Gref and VTB’s Andrey Kostin, also feature in the list.
The list was released under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which Trump had reluctantly signed in August 2017. It imposes sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea. Russia has been accused of meddling in the 2016 United States presidential elections and helping Trump win. The former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Mueller, is leading an investigation into the charges.