Russian President Vladimir Putin says the United States has taken a ‘hostile step” by releasing a list detailing the wealth and political connections of 210 people with close Kremlin connections. But he said there would be no immediate move to retaliate.
The U.S. Treasury Department published the list Monday, as required by a law passed by Congress last August aimed at punishing Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, a charge Russia denies.
U.S. President Donald Trump reluctantly signed the law, and administration officials said Monday there are no immediate plans to impose new sanctions on the Kremlin.
In a written statement, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the measure already was hitting Russian companies.
“Today, we have informed Congress that this legislation and its implementation are deterring Russian defense sales,” Nauert wrote. “Since the enactment of the … legislation, we estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions.”
Several Kremlin officials reacted angrily to the U.S. report. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would “poison relations for a long time.”
But Putin was more reserved. Speaking at a campaign event Tuesday in Moscow, he said that while he was dismayed at publication of the list, he would hold off on retaliatory actions, apparently in view of the lack of accompanying U.S. sanctions.
“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. But we’re going to refrain from taking these steps for now,” Putin said.
He joked, however that he was disappointed that he was not included on the list.
The report details the finances and political connections of 114 Russian politicians and 96 so-called “oligarchs” who have prospered under Putin. Officials noted that the list of oligarchs appears to be the same as Forbes’ ranking of Russian billionaires.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who is among those on the list, said Russia would study the information in the U.S. report before deciding on a response.
‘Crooks and thieves’
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny hailed the publication of the list, tweeting Tuesday that he was “glad to see these [people] have been officially recognized at the international level as crooks and thieves.”
Trump criticized the congressionally-mandated list when he signed the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” saying it “improperly encroaches on executive power, disadvantages American companies and hurts the interests of our European allies.”
The measure gave the Trump administration 180 days to produce the list, which includes Prime Minister Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and top spy agency officials. Among the business figures are aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, Sberbank CEO German Gref and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller.
The law ordered the Trump administration to impose sanctions on anyone who engages in a “significant transaction” with the defense or intelligence sectors of the Russian government.
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer criticized the administration’s decision not to impose new sanctions or “put forth a plan for how it plans to deter further Russian aggression.”
“Sanctions are a deterrent only if countries believe the U.S. will impose them. The anemic announcements today, with no statements from senior administration officials, do not give me confidence that is the case,” Hoyer said in a statement.
Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi also criticized the White House decision.
“Congress passed sanctions on Russia overwhelmingly to send a message on Russian interference in our democracy. The president doesn’t appear to want to send that message,” he wrote on Twitter.
