John Yang:

Judy, last summer, Congress overwhelmingly voted to sanction Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections.

Last night, the Trump administration said it is not imposing any of those sanctions because the threat of them is enough. The measure also directed the Treasury Department to compile a list of Russian senior political leaders, heads of state-controlled industries and oligarchs worth more than a billion dollars in an effort to name and shame them.

Last night, the Treasury Department sent Congress a list of more than 200 names. It includes Russian Prime Minister and former President Dmitry Medvedev, Igor Sechin, the chief of Rosneft, a Russian energy giant. He is also part of President Putin's inner circle.

And Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire aluminum magnate with alleged ties to corporate — sorry — to organized crime. He is also the business partner — or was the business partner of now indicted and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Joining us now to talk all about this is Andrew Weiss. He worked for both Republican and Democratic administrations as a staffer on the National Security Council and in the state and Defense Departments. He's now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Andrew, thanks for being here.

Let's begin with this list. What's the point of it? The Treasury Department was careful to say no one on this list is being sanctioned, so why did Congress want to draw it up, and what does being on that list mean?