US Puts Gazprom CEO Miller on Sanctions List [Adds Browder Remarks]
The US Treasury Department with effect from April 6 designated Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and several other 'oligarchs' on a list whose assets on US territory can be frozen.
"All assets subject to US jurisdiction of the designated individuals and entities, and of any other entities blocked by operation of law as a result of their ownership by a sanctioned party, are frozen, and US persons are generally prohibited from dealings with them. Additionally, non-US persons could face sanctions for knowingly facilitating significant transactions for or on behalf of the individuals or entities blocked today," it said.
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in consultation with the US Department of State, has designated seven Russian oligarchs and 12 companies they own or control, 17 senior Russian government officials –including Miller – and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank.
The list, available here with further details here, includes Surgutneftegaz director general Vladimir Bogdanov; Renova founding chairman and former TNK-BP shareholder Viktor Vekselberg; former Rusal CEO Oleg Deripaska; VTB bank chairman Andrey Kostin; Gazprombank CEO Andrey Akimov; Igor Rotenberg who owns 79% of Russian drilling company Gazprom Burenie; as well as Gazprom's Miller himself. It is doubtful that Miller holds assets in the US; others on the list may have known such measures were likely.
The 12 companies listed include Russian aluminium giant Rusal; independent power producer EuroSibEnergo which generates about 9% of Russia’s total electricity; Renova Group; Gazprom Burenie; and leading Russian vehicle manufacturer Gaz Group which the US Treasury says is now controlled by Deripaska.
“The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T Mnuchin. “The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine; supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians; attempting to subvert Western democracies; and malicious cyber activities. Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilising activities.” There was no immediate reaction from the Kremlin following the April 6 publication of the US Treasury list.
The US government published a list of 210 leading Russians, whom it deemed 'Putin allies' and which included Miller, on January 29 2018 but it carried no sanctions and served purely as a warning.
Update 8.20pm British Summer Time, April 6 2018:
Bill Browder, former head of Moscow investment fund Hermitage Capital Management, who now leads the Magnitsky Global Justice Campaign, told Britain's Channel 4 News: "These sanctions will really bite ... In this particular situation, [the US government] has gone after the people who hold Putin's money; this is a very, very significant step that the US has taken. It will hit Putin right between the eyes." Browder founded the Magnitsky campaign after his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was wrongly imprisoned by Russia and died in custody in 2009, deprived of medical treatment.
Britain should quickly follow the US example against the same people, said Browder, saying that Russian oligarchs "have been welcomed with open arms" in the UK, criticising its "laissez-faire attitude to such people" and noting how, whereas Deripaska had been barred from the US for several years, "he has one of the most amazing houses in Belgravia, London."