US government officials yesterday slapped sanctions on five prominent Russians, days before President Barack Obama is due to be replaced by Donald Trump.
The blacklisted group includes two suspects wanted for questioning in the UK in connection with the death of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, and a senior federal prosecutor with close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A spokesperson for the Obama administration said the sanctions were not levied in response to allegations that Russia had used cyber espionage to intervene in November’s US presidential elections, but were in fact linked to the 2012 US Magnitsky Act against human rights abuses.
The act is named after Sergei Magnitsky, a whistleblower who was tortured and killed in a Moscow jail after exposing a multimillion dollar tax fraud carried out by crooked Russian officials. The law allows US prosecutors to apply to have the assets of Russian human rights abusers frozen, and prohibit their entry to America.
Commenting on the announcement, State Department spokesperson John Kirby said: “Each of the most recently added names was considered after extensive research.
“The additions include individuals who currently play significant roles in the repressive machinery of Russia’s law enforcement systems, as well as individuals involved in notorious human rights violations.”
The Russian government gave no immediate response to the announcement.
The five men to face sanctions are federal investigator Alexander Bastrykin, Gennady Plaksin and Stanislav Gordiyevsky, who are both suspected of involvement in Magnitsky’s death, and Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun, who are alleged to have murdered Litvinenko in London over a decade ago.
Former KGB agent Litvinenko was poisoned with potent radioactive isotope polonium-210 during a meeting with Russian officials at a London hotel after fleeing to the UK, where he became a vocal critic of the Kremlin. A UK inquiry found his murder was most likely ordered by the chief of Russia’s FSB intelligence agency, and signed off by Putin himself.
To date, the Obama administration has blacklisted 44 Russian nationals under the Magnitsky Act. Asked why Putin had not been targeted after the most recent additions were announced, a senior US government spokesperson told the AFP news agency that officials do not want relations between the two countries to break down completely.
“We need to preserve the possibility of working with Russia in areas in which it is in the US national interest,” the official said.
Observers noted that the sanctions were likely the Obama administration’s last significant move against Russia before the swearing in next Friday of president-elect Trump, who has said he will seek to establish warmer ties with Moscow when he takes office.
