US Issues List of 210 Top Putin Allies

The US government overnight published a list of 210 senior Russians, including the heads of Gazprom, Rosneft, Novatek, Sakhalin Energy, as well as Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and several oligarchs.

Those named in the January 29 2018 list, however, are not hit with new sanctions, the US has stressed. The BBC said it is part of a sanctions law aimed at punishing Russia for meddling in the US election, and that the law was passed in August, and signed into law by President Donald Trump with reservations. The full list can be accessed here.

It includes Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller, Rosneft CEO and former deputy PM Igor Sechin, Novatek CEO Leonid Mikhelson, LNG venture Sakhalin Energy’s CEO Roman Dashkov, plus oligarchs such as former Sibneft owner Roman Abramovitch, former Guvnor owner Gennadi Timchenko, and former TNK-BP co-owner Viktor Vekselberg. 

Mikhelson is listed in Appendix B as oligarch No.58, rather than under his Novatek CEO role, while LetterOne and Hamburg-based DEA co-owner Mikhail Fridman is similarly included as oligarch No.23.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, himself on the list, is quoted by RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty accusing the US in turn of trying to meddle in the March 18 Russian presidential election. President Vladimir Putin himself is not listed, but all 210 are closely linked to him.

Only late last week, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (Ofac) January 26 issued a new list of 21 individuals and 9 entities that are now subject to US sanctions because of Russian occupation since 2014 of eastern Ukraine and Crimea. That list can be accessed here but mainly includes members of the Russian-backed regional governments in those annexed territories. However it does also include Evro Polis, which the list describes as “a Russian company that has contracted with the Government of Syria to protect Syrian oil fields in exchange for a 25% share in oil and gas production from the fields.”