Treasury Secretary Stephen T. Mnuchin insisted Tuesday that the Trump administration is still weighing sanctions related to Russian election meddling even after the State Department let the deadline pass without imposing any further penalties.

But the Trump administration’s move late Monday evening to hold off on new sanctions — even while releasing a vast list of possible targets — sparked criticism in Washington, mockery in Russia, and a rally in Russian government bonds and the ruble on world financial markets.

In at times sharp exchanges at a hearing of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Mr. Mnuchin said the State Department’s decision to refrain from further sanctions should not be read as a sign that President Trump was letting the Kremlin off the hook.

Congress in July passed a sanctions bill that, among other things, set a Jan. 29 deadline for the administration to identify and implement sanctions against Russian government officials and Kremlin-tied business leaders involved in suspected interference in the 2016 presidential election. But just as the legal deadline passed Monday evening, the State Department said it was using a waiver in the law to hold off on any penalties. Spokeswoman Heather Nauert argued that the U.S. law already had cost Russia’s defense industry several billion dollars in lost foreign sales.

“The intent was not to have sanctions by [Monday night],” Mr. Mnuchin told the Senate panel. “The intent was to do an extremely thorough analysis — it’s hundreds of pages — and there will be sanctions that come out of this report.”

Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney told MSNBC on Tuesday that the Treasury Department was “taking the time to do this properly” and critics should not overinterpret a “brief delay” in deciding on sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin — who was not personally among the 114 Russian politicians and Kremlin officials targeted — called the U.S. move a “hostile act” but joked that he was offended to have been left off what Russian officials dismissed as a comically broad list. Mr. Putin said Moscow would refrain from retaliating given that no U.S. penalties had been announced.

“All of us, all 146 million, have been put on some kind of list,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting with activists of his campaign. “Certainly, this is an unfriendly move, which further exacerbates the already strained Russia-U.S. relations and hurts international relations as a whole.”

Mr. Putin also warned that the publication of the list would only make it harder for Moscow to cooperate with Washington on other priority issues, including North Korea and Syria.

In an ironic twist, some officials in Moscow even accused the Trump administration of trying to meddle in Russia’s March 18 presidential election, which Mr. Putin is expected to win easily.

In the Russian media, officials mocked Trump administration claims that the sanction targets had been carefully selected. Konstantin Kosachev, a leading foreign policy voice in the State Duma, said the list appeared to be a “copy of the Kremlin’s phone book.”

Writing for Bloomberg News, former Russian business journalist Leonid Bershidsky said the Treasury’s list of 96 Russian business leaders who could be sanctioned was copied directly from the Russian edition of Forbes magazine’s billionaires list. The list, he said, included some business executives who have clashed with Mr. Putin and omitted others simply because they fell below the cut of $1 billion in net worth.

“It’s fine if the Trump administration doesn’t believe in sanctions,” he wrote. “But if Congress still demands sanctions — and it does — the administration should do a better job of selecting targets.”

In the financial markets, the yield on Russian government bonds rose to their highest level in nearly five years and the ruble gained against the dollar Tuesday. It was a sign that traders were taking the U.S. move and the publication of the list as what one called a nonevent.

“The current U.S. approach significantly diminishes the risk of harsh measures against Russian debt over the short term,” analysts at Societe Generale SA wrote in a note to investors.

Some on Capitol Hill seemed willing to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt. The president has repeatedly denounced charges that his campaign colluded with the Kremlin in 2016 but has backed some sanctions on Russia over Ukraine and other policies.

“On the whole, it is clear the administration is working in good faith, and I am committed to applying pressure as needed to ensure further implementation” of the sanctions, said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican.

Dmitry Peskov, Mr. Putin’s highly visible spokesman who was included on the Treasury list, acknowledged that just being listed cast a shadow in the market and on the world stage for those being targeted.

“Publication of such a wide list of everything and everyone could potentially damage the image and reputation of our firms, our businessmen, our politicians and of members of the leadership,” he told reporters in Moscow.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, slammed the administration’s decision as “hopelessly inadequate.”

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, lashed out at Mr. Trump for what she called a “dangerous and brazen” failure to follow through on Congress‘ clear determination to punish Moscow for its role in trying to undermine the 2016 presidential election and to focus instead on the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies that tried to prevent it.

“Instead of holding Russia accountable for its attacks on our country undermining our elections, the president is waging an all-out attack on our patriotic intelligence and law enforcement communities making our country less safe,” Ms. Pelosi said in statement.

• Dan Boylan and Dave Sherfinski contributed to this report.

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