FOREIGN POLICY/RUSSIA/TREASURY: “The U.S. Treasury Department released an unclassified list of Russian senior political figures and oligarchs, provoking ire in Moscow even as its consequences were unclear.
The list totaled more than 200 names of top officials, heads of state-controlled companies and wealthy businessmen. President Vladimir Putin isn’t on the list, but top Kremlin aides and government ministers, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, are. Also on the list are some of the country’s wealthiest tycoons, including Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich and Aleksei Mordashov.
It was delivered just before midnight on Monday [1-29-18], the deadline Congress had set for its release under a provision of a sanctions law passed last year. The Treasury Department said repeatedly in its late-night statement that the report doesn’t constitute a sanctions list and inclusion on the list doesn’t confer sanctions on those named.
However, the statement also said the Treasury reserved the right to use ‘all available sources of information,’ including classified versions of the report, when making decisions about additional sanctions.
Mr. Putin said the list was ‘an unfriendly act,’ but that Russia didn’t intend to ‘pick a fight.’ He said that Russia had prepared serious measures in response, but would hold off for now while watching what the implications of the list are.”
-Samuel Rubenfeld and James Marson, “Hundreds of Russia’s Elite Put on a U.S. List, Irking Moscow,” The New York Times online, Jan. 30, 2018 10:01am