PRESS: US may sanction over 50 Russians close to Putin

MOSCOW, Jan 12 (PRIME) -- The U.S. administration is to submit a report to the Congress soon that will comprise over 50 Russian officials and businessmen, or up to 300 people, including their families, that have close ties to President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle, Kommersant business daily reported on Friday citing sources.

The report is to be submitted no later than on January 29 under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), but Kommersant sources declined to reveal any names.

According to Daniel Fried, the State Department’s coordinator for the sanctions policy, the inclusion into the report does not mean automatic restrictive measures against the people, but increases the risk that sanctions may be imposed in the future, Kommersant reported.

The U.S. democrats are worried that President Donald Trump would not introduce sensitive measures against the people mentioned in the report not to destroy relations with Putin. The democrat senators published a 200-page report called Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for US National Security to sway public opinion to their side

Senator Benjamin Cardin said that the goal of the report was to show that the so-called “Russian threat” is a long-term destabilization factor that had emerged after Putin assumed power in 2000. The report describes Russia’s alleged meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential election as the catastrophe of the same magnitude as the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the September 11 attacks of 2001.

Putin said at a meeting with heads of Russian news agencies that these allegations are “complete nonsense and delusion”.

“If they (the Americans) themselves poke noses into other people’s affairs, they should be ready to respond to certain challenges of their own…Please, don’t understand my words in a way that we interfere in anyone’s business. We have no plans to interfere anywhere,” he said.

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