Blog Post

AEIdeas

On January 30, the Trump administration released an unclassified report “Regarding Senior Foreign Political Figures and Oligarchs” in Russia as required by Section 241 of the 2017 “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act” (CAATSA).

Exposing the ill-gotten wealth of Kremlin-connected Russians is a worthy moral and geopolitical cause, and so naming potential targets for sanctions is a step in the right direction. But on this occasion the administration’s effort is minimal. Both lists of “senior political figures” and “oligarchs” are nearly identical to ones available on the Kremlin’s website and Forbes’ ranking of the richest Russians. Indeed, according to Buzzfeed News, the “oligarchs” section of the list was taken directly from the Forbes list. Nor does the report highlight anyone’s relationship to Putin, which is critical since it is personal connections, rather than titles, that dictate influence in Putin’s Russia.

As a result, key players such as the head of the all-powerful national Investigative Committee Aleksandr Bastrykin and FSB head Aleksandr Bortnikov are buried on the second-to-last page underneath regional plenipotentiaries and presidential aides. Similarly, the only criteria for inclusion into the “oligarch” section appears to be the Forbes list of Russian billionaires. As a result, one finds in it both close friends of Putin who are already sanctioned (Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, Gennady Timchenko), as well as men who have publicly distanced themselves from the Kremlin (Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven), and even those are embroiled in lawsuits against the Russian government (Yuri Shefler) or have had their companies seized by the Russian government (the Ananiev brothers, Danil Khachaturov, Yelena Baturina).

One hopes the classified report’s ranking is more reasonable, but at the moment it seems that the Treasury and State Department only have a vague idea of how the Kremlin actually works — or simply don’t care. No sources of ill-gotten wealth have been revealed, undermining the “naming and shaming” deterrent effects of such a report. Most critically, no new sanctions have been imposed on anyone in the report.

In the end, despite the broad powers granted to the executive branch by CAATSA, the mountain has given birth to a mouse.