More than a warning – Ukraine's finance minister on U.S. 'Kremlin list'
The publication by the Treasury Department of the United States of a list of representatives of the Russian government and the oligarchs close to it, which may be subject to sanctions, is a confirmation of the confident consistent position of the entire U.S. administration, Ukrainian Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk has said.
"This is more than a warning - this is another step that should prompt Russia to stop interfering in the democratic processes in various countries of the world and stop the war in Ukraine," Ukrainian finance minister wrote on his Facebook page.
He stressed that sanctions are one of the most effective and powerful methods of influencing Russia.
The list submitted to the U.S. Congress includes 96 businessmen with a fortune exceeding $1 billion, as well as 114 officials and heads of state companies, among them Dmitry Medvedev, Igor Shuvalov, Anton Siluanov, Maxim Oreshkin, Arkady Dvorkovich, Nikolai Nikiforov, Alexei Miller, Igor Sechin, Herman Gref, Andrei Kostin, Boris Kovalchuk, Sergei Gorkov, Alexei Likhachyov, Vitaly Saveyev, Nikolai Tokarev, Oleg Deripaska, Roman Abramovich, Vladimir Potanin, and Mikhail Fridman.
Other businessmen on the list are Alisher Usmanov, Vagit Alekperov, Petr Aven, Elena Baturina, the Ananyev brothers, Leonid Fedun, Sergei Galitsky, Filaret Galchev, Roman Avdeyev, Mikhail Gutseriyev, Yevgeny Kaspersky, Suleiman Kerimov, Igor Kesayev, Andrei Kosogov, Alexei Kuzmichev, Vladimir Lisin, Ziyavudin Magomedov, Iskander Makhmudov, Alexander Mamut, Leonid Mikhelson, Yury Milner, Boris Mints, Aleshei Mordashov, God Nisanov, Mikhail Prokhorov, Dmitry Pumpyansky, Viktor Rashnikov, Kirill Shamalov, Oleg Tinkov, Viktor Vekselberg, Arkady Volozh, and Vladimir Yevtushenkov.
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) obliges the U.S. Treasury Secretary to report to Congress on anti-Russian sanctions after consulting with the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of State.
The annex to the report, which will remain classified, may include persons with a lesser financial status and not included in the number of senior officials. A separate part of it is a list of enterprises with a state share of more than 25% and revenues of more than $2 billion.
On January 29, the U.S. Administration was to deliver a report to Congress on politicians and businessmen closely associated with the Russian authorities. The Ministry of Finance must assess the consequences of various restrictive measures with respect to members of this list.
Inclusion in the list does not mean the distribution of any concrete sanctions on the persons included in it. However, experts believe that listing may reduce the access of these individuals to operations with foreign financial institutions, as many credit institutions will see persons from the report as persons under sanctions.
At the same time, Moscow share markets and PTS indices even slightly grew after the publication of the "Kremlin list," while the ICU financial analyst Mikhail Demkiv called the publication of the list without the introduction of new sanctions "a fluff."