U.S. issues new Russia sanctions

WASHINGTON -- The United States punished dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials Friday with sanctions taking direct aim at President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, as President Donald Trump's administration tried to show he's not afraid to take tough action against Moscow.

Seven Russian tycoons, including aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, were targeted, along with 17 officials and a dozen Russian companies, the Treasury Department said. Senior Trump administration officials cast it as part of a concerted, ongoing effort to push back on Putin, emphasizing since Trump took office last year, the U.S. has punished 189 Russia-related people and entities with sanctions.

Rather than punishing Russia for one specific action, the new sanctions hit back at the Kremlin for its "ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern" of bad behavior, said the officials, who weren't authorized to comment by name and briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. The officials ticked through a list of complaints about Russia's actions beyond its borders, including its annexation of Crimea, backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, and cyber-hacking.

Above all else, Russia's attempts to subvert Western democracy prompted the U.S. sanctions, officials said, in a direct nod to concerns the U.S. president has failed to challenge Putin for alleged interference in the 2016 election bringing Trump to power.

Deripaska, whose business conglomerate controls assets from agriculture to machinery, has been a prominent figure in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation over his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The Treasury Department said Deripaska was accused of illegal wiretaps, extortion, racketeering, money laundering and even death threats against business rivals.

On the London Stock Exchange, global depositary receipts of En+, an energy company majority-owned by Deripaska, dropped by 19 percent on news of the sanctions. Deripaska's conglomerate, Basic Element, said it regretted the sanctions and was analyzing them with its lawyers.

Putin's government dismissed the sanctions as "absurdity," arguing the U.S. was punishing companies with longstanding business ties to the U.S. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. was "striking at ordinary Americans" by jeopardizing "thousands of jobs."

"American democracy is clearly degrading," the ministry said. "Of course, we will not leave the current and any new anti-Russian attack without a tough response."

To the dismay of Trump's critics and of Russia hawks, the president has continued to avoid directly criticizing Putin himself and recently invited the Russian leader to meet with him, possibly at the White House. Yet in recent weeks Trump's administration has rolled out a series of actions, including several economic and diplomatic steps, to increase pressure on Putin and those presumed to benefit from his power.

"Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have," Trump said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Yet even as it rolled out the new penalties, Trump's administration left open the possibility of "a good relationship with Russia" in the future. And at the White House, spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said discussions with Moscow about a Trump-Putin summit would not be called off.

"Not at all," Sanders said. "We'll continue."

Those being punished aren't necessarily involved in the Russian actions in Syria, Ukraine or elsewhere drawing consternation from the West. But officials said the goal was to put pressure on Putin by showing those who have benefited financially from his position of power are fair game.

The target list includes some who are closely tied to Putin himself, including top-tier officials involved in Kremlin decision-making and heads of the top state-controlled business entities. Yet others on the list are far from the Kremlin's orbit, including some who long have fallen out of favor or hold technical positions.

The sanctions freeze any assets those targeted have in U.S. jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. But the administration said it would give guidance to Americans who may currently have business with them about how to wind down business and avoid running afoul of the sanctions. Some, but not all, of the individuals sanctioned will also be prohibited from entering the United States.

It was not clear whether any of those hit have significant holdings in the U.S. to seize, and if they did previously, they may have already moved their money elsewhere in anticipation of the sanctions. In January, lists of Russian officials and oligarchs were published by the State Department and Treasury. The lists, required under a law passed last year, were informally seen as lists of potential future sanctions targets, even though the public version of the oligarchs list was merely a reprint of Forbes' list of billionaires in Russia.