Earlier this week, the Treasury Department identified 210 Russian billionaires and senior officials in a sweeping list required under last summer’s sanctions law, but underlined that those named aren’t being targeted for new restrictions. Bloomberg reports:
The 96 tycoons matched the list of billionaires published by the Russian edition of Forbes magazine last year. Along with the 114 officials and state-company heads, they were compiled based on “objective criteria drawn from publicly available sources,” the Treasury said. Among business leaders, the list includes people already subject to sanctions because of their close ties to Putin, such as Arkady Rotenberg, as well as those seen as distant from the Kremlin, such as banker Oleg Tinkov and grocery tycoon Sergey Galitsky.
Government officials listed ranged from Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Energy Minister Alexander Novak to the heads of state companies and Kremlin representatives in Russia’s regions.
The list, in part due to its length, has reportedly come under considerable criticism: “By naming the whole Russian government, presidential administration and all Russian billionaires,” the United States “has undermined and ridiculed the U.S. sanctions on Russia,” Anders Aslund, an economist and frequent Putin critic who had published recommendations for the list before its release, wrote on Twitter.
It is still unclear how the list will inform future US sanctions against Russia.