He hold regular meetings with Putin and was heavily involved in the construction of the Sochi Winter Olympics infrastructure

Deripaska's EN+ company dropped 19 per cent on the London Stock Exchange after the sanctions were announced

Aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska had business ties with Trump's campaign chief Paul Manafort and has been charged as part of the Mueller probe

Oleg Deripaska (pictured) is among those accused by the White House of 'directly or indirectly' acting on behalf of the Kremlin

A Russian tycoon who hosted George Osborne on his yacht has seen £1billion wiped from the value of his London-listed firm after he was placed on a U.S. government sanctions blacklist.

Aluminium tycoon Oleg Deripaska is among those accused by the White House of 'directly or indirectly' acting on behalf of the Kremlin.

Washington imposed sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska, 12 companies they own or control, as well as 17 senior Russian government officials.

These figure, it says, had been profiting from a Russian state engaged in 'malign activities' around the world.

Mr Deripaska, 50, hosted George Osborne for drinks on his yacht in 2008, sparking accusations the ex-chancellor was canvassing him for donations to the Conservative Party coffers. Osborne denies these accusations.

The Russian has featured prominently in US prosecutor Robert Mueller's investigation over his ties to former chairman of the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort.

He has also been accused of illegal wiretapping, extortion, racketeering, money laundering, and death threats against business rivals.

Shares in his energy company EN+ dropped 19 per cent on the London Stock Exchange after the sanctions were announced, wiping £1billion from its market value.

Deripaska (pictured right) holds regular meetings with President Vladimir Putin (pictured left) and invested heavily in building infrastructure for Russia's 2014 Sochi winter Olympics

Deripaska called the U.S. decision 'very unfortunate but not unexpected.'

'Certainly the grounds for putting my name on the list of SDNs as provided by U.S. officials are groundless, ridiculous and absurd,' he said in a statement from Basic Element, one of his businesses. SDN stands for 'Specially Designated National.'

George Osborne (pictured) joined Deripaska on his yacht in 2008

Deripaska, estimated by Forbes magazine to have a net worth of £4.7billion, is the main owner of the conglomerate EN+, which is the co-owner of some of the world's biggest metals producers, Rusal and Nornickel.

Hong Kong-listed Rusal is one of the world's biggest aluminium producers. It says exports to the United States account for over 10 per cent of its output.

Rusal owns assets in Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Nigeria, Guyana, Guinea.

According to a Rusal prospectus, its major customers include Glencore, Toyota, and Rio Tinto Alcan.

In his life and career, Deripaska has frequently intersected with the Kremlin and Russian officialdom.

He holds regular meetings with President Vladimir Putin, he invested heavily in building infrastructure for Russia's 2014 Sochi winter Olympics, and has said his own interests are indivisible from the state's interests.

The mother of Deripaska's children, Polina, is the daughter of Valentin Yumashev, who was presidential chief of staff under former Russian president Boris Yeltsin. Yumashev later married Yeltsin's daughter, Tatyana Dyachenko.

Deripaska did business in the 2000s with Paul Manafort (pictured), who later became campaign manager for Donald Trump

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

Yeltsin and his entourage were instrumental in elevating Vladimir Putin to power as the anointed successor to the ailing president.

Deripaska did business in the 2000s with Paul Manafort, who later became campaign manager for Donald Trump when he was running for president.

Last year the Washington Post reported that Manafort sent an email in July 2016 offering Deripaska private briefings about Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Manafort was chairman of the campaign at the time.

Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni has said the email exchanges were 'innocuous' and aimed at collecting money owed by past clients.

Raising the stakes: Senior Trump officials cast the penalties as part of a concerted and ongoing effort by the U.S. to push back against Russian President Vladimir Putin's government and his inner circle

Industry bigs: Oleg Deripaska, an aluminum magnate whose Rusal is one of the country's biggest companies and who has ties to ex-Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort is being hit, as is Gazprom CEO Alexi Miller

This latest wave of sanctions come as senior U.S. administration officials cast the penalties as part of a concerted and ongoing effort to push back at Putin and his inner circle.

But Trump has continued to avoid directly criticizing Putin himself, and recently invited the Russian leader to meet with him, possibly at the White House.

Still, 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 in his circle.

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

Rather than punishing Russia for one specific action, the new sanctions are in response to 'the totality of the Russian government's 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 sanctions freeze any assets that those targeted have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from doing business with them.

It was not clear whether any of those hit have significant, or any, holdings that would be covered and most of them were warned of possible penalties in January when they were identified as possible targets on lists published by the Treasury and State departments.

Pout of order: Kiril Shamalov, who is believed to be married to Putin's daughter Katerina Tikhonova, is one of those facing new sanctions

Friends and allies: Igor Rotenberg's father is one of Putin's oldest friends while Andrey Kostin heads Russia's second-largest bank, VTB, which is controlled by the state

The administration officials said Americans who may currently have business with them would be given guidance about how to wind down that business and avoid running afoul of the sanctions.

The officials ticked through a list of activities they said had prompted the U.S. to act, including Russia's annexation of Crimea, backing separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, cyber-hacking and attempts to subvert Western democracy.

Many of the targets are individuals and businesses associated with Russia's energy sector, including those affiliated with state-owned Gazprom.

Officials said the goal was to show that those who have benefited financially from Putin's position of power are fair game for U.S. punishments, noting that many of those being sanctioned are closely tied to Putin himself.

Targets include:

Kirill Shamalov, who is reportedly Putin's son-in-law, married to his daughter Katerina Tikhonova, although neither Putin nor the Kremlin have acknowledged that she is his daughter.

Igor Rotenberg, the son of Arkady Rotenberg, a friend of Putin's since they were teenagers.

Andrey Kostin, named among government officials, heads the nation's second-largest bank, VTB, which is controlled by the state.

Alexei Miller, the longtime head of the state-controlled Gazprom natural gas giant. Both Miller and Kostin are longtime key members of Putin's team.

Victim: Sergei Skripal, a Russian who spied for Britain, was poisoned with a nerve agent prompting tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats. His daughter Yulia (left) was also left seriously ill

Other oligarchs on the list include some top names on the Forbes' list of billionaires, aren't part of Putin's inner circle but like any other billionaire tycoons in Russia they vie for the Kremlin's attention to preserve and extend their business empires.

Many of the Russian oligarchs and politicians and affiliated businesses had already been identified by the Treasury and State Department as potential targets on a list that was compiled and published in January.

One of those hit by Friday's sanctions, Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the Russian Federation Council's foreign affairs committee, expressed surprise he had not already been blacklisted by the U.S.

'As far as I am concerned the only thing I'm surprised at is that this didn't happen earlier,' he told the Interfax news agency. 'I never made secret of my criticism of the U.S. foreign policy, and I will not change my stance.'

The sanctions freeze any assets that those targeted have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from doing business with them.

On their way home: Russian diplomats kicked out of the U.S. were picked up by government bus in Moscow on Sunday, while later in the week American embassy staff flew back to the U.S.

But the administration said it would give guidance to Americans who may currently have business with them about how to wind down that business and avoid running afoul of the sanctions.

The Trump administration used a variety of legal mechanisms to implement the sanctions, including the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.

Known as CAATSA, the law was overwhelmingly passed by Congress in 2017 and signed by President Donald Trump despite some objections.

The law aims to punish Russia for interfering in the U.S. election as well as actions intended to subvert democracy in Europe.

The law also authorizes the president to impose sanctions on Iran for destabilizing activity in the Middle East and North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Last month, the U.S. targeted 19 Russians and five other entities with sanctions in the first use of the law. The administration has also expelled dozens of Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian consulates in response to Russian behavior, including the poisoning of an ex-spy in Britain that has been blamed on Moscow.