U.S. Plans Sanctions on Russian Oligarchs This Week, Official Says

• April 05 2018
• Saleha Mohsin

The Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on Russian tycoons as early as this week, a U.S. government official said.

The Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on Russian tycoons as early as this week under provisions of a law calling for retaliation against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, a U.S. government official said.

Plans call for targeting six to 10 so-called Russian oligarchs, though no firm decision has been made on the number, the official said.

The administration is trying to satisfy pressure from Congress to act on a sanctions law passed last summer, the official said. The U.S. in January identified 210 wealthy Russians, top officials and business leaders for a list required under the law. The targets for the sanctions will be taken from a classified annex to the report, the official said.

Democrats in Congress have publicly criticized President Donald Trump for being slow to act on the sanctions law.

Asked about the planned sanctions, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday: “The phrase ‘Russian oligarchs’ is considered inappropriate. The time when there were oligarchs in Russia passed long ago, there are no oligarchs in Russia.”

— With assistance by Ilya Arkhipov