From the Forum of the Presidential Candidate, 2018
January 30, 2018

Translated by Inessa S.

On January 29, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department released an unclassified list of “influential Russians” linked to the Kremlin. Dubbed the “Kremlin list,” the document was a legal requirement of a widened sanctions bill passed by Congress last year. At the Forum of the Presidential Candidate for 2018 (the upcoming elections will take place on 18 March, 2018) it was noted that the list appeared to have been put together haphazardly, using public resources including a list of Russian billionaires published by Forbes. Under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, a law billed as a U.S. response to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the Treasury was asked to draw up a list of “oligarchs and parastatal entities” within 180 days. Russian deputy Konstantin Kosachev accused the Treasury of simply “rewriting the Kremlin phone book.” And certainly, some inclusions in the list are surprising: Anna Kuznetsova, the children’s Comissioner, as well as Mikhail Fedotov, head of the Kremlin human rights council.

President Putin responds.