The two men Britain believes carried out the radioactive poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko are among five new names placed on a US sanctions list, as the Obama administration rushes to censure Russia before it relinquishes power in 10 days’ time.

Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, suspects in the 2006 murder of Litvinenko with polonium in London, were placed on the “Magnitsky list” by the US Treasury, along with Alexander Bastrykin, the powerful head of Russia’s investigative committee.

Officials said the sanctions were not linked to the recent allegations that Russia interfered in the US elections, but the measures are the latest of several taken against Russia in the past fortnight.

The Magnitsky Act was passed in 2012 with the aim of punishing officials responsible for human rights abuses, notably the 2009 prison death of the whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.



The other two people added to the list were Gennady Plaksin, a former bank chief, and Stanislav Gordiyevsky, a state investigator, both of whom have been tied to the Magnistky case.

The list is now made up of 44 Russians who are banned from travelling to the US and have had any assets in the country frozen.

Lugovoi, who is now an MP, told the RIA Novosti news agency he was perplexed at being placed on the list. Bastrykin has previously said it would be a great honour to be included on a US sanctions list.

US intelligence agencies have assessed that their Russian military counterparts hacked the Democratic party’s server, leaked data and carried out a multi-faceted campaign to promote Donald Trump’s election. The president-elect has called the claims “a political witch-hunt”, and the Kremlin has repeatedly denied involvement.

In response to the assessment, the US expelled 35 Russian diplomats and closed down two diplomatic compounds used since the Soviet era. It also announced a number of sanctions against top intelligence officials, two criminal hackers and three tech companies.



Trump has repeatedly praised Putin and declined to criticise Russia over the alleged interference. His initial public response to the expulsion of the diplomats was to call Putin “very smart” for not responding in kind. Putin said he believed relations could improve under Trump, and instead of a reciprocal expulsion, invited the children of US diplomats to see the Kremlin Christmas tree.

Trump wrote on Twitter over the weekend that once he is president, “both countries will, perhaps, work together to solve some of the many great and pressing problems and issues of the WORLD!”

Trump’s adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said in a television interview on Monday that he could seek to roll back some of the sanctions. “I predict that President Trump will want to make sure that our actions are proportionate to what occurred, based on what we know,” she said.