The Trump administration is expected to provide lawmakers with a report Monday that calls out Russian president Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, a document that has had Russian elites worried for months.
Though the so-called “Kremlin report” does not immediately sanction those listed, Russian elites are anxious about the financial impact of being named and some have reportedly worked to avoid being listed. The congressionally-mandated report will name major oligarchs, their relationship with Putin, their estimated net worth (and known sources of income as well as that of their family members), any foreign business affiliations they may have, and an identification of “indices of corruption.”
Russian media has been reporting on the impending list, with one article warning that it could implicate as many as 300 people, including oligarchs’ family members. The Treasury Department is also due to submit a report describing the effects of expanding sanctions to Russia’s sovereign debt.
“The reports could roil Russian markets and be a harbinger of biting sanctions to come,” writes Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Zilberman told TWS that those listed would become “relatively radioactive” to the global financial community.
But it is unclear how much of the report provided to Congress will be classified. Daniel Fried, who previously served as the State Department’s sanctions policy coordinator, described the list as a “name and shame exercise” that, outside of some potential classified details, should be made public.
“This list is supposed to be a clear warning to the Russian elite generally that their interests would better be served if they stayed away from Putin,” he said. According to the underlying legislation, the report must be given to congressional committees “in an unclassified form” but “may contain a classified annex.”
Lawmakers also say they want the bulk of the report unclassified.
“While we understand the need to provide a classified annex to the report, we trust that you will make the report itself unclassified, as the law requires, so that the American public might gain a better understanding of how the Russian Federation’s system operates,” said top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee Ben Cardin and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, along with two other top Democrats, in a letter Friday.
They reminded the administration about the series of requirements in the underlying legislation, which, in addition to the set of reports, include imposing sanctions related to Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors.
Administration officials missed an October deadline to submit the relevant guidance on Russian defense and intelligence-linked entities that could face sanctions, much to lawmakers’ frustration. Cardin has been closely monitoring the implementation of the underlying sanctions legislation, which the president reluctantly signed into law in August.
Republicans are also awaiting Monday’s report. Four GOP senators wrote to administration officials in mid-January and pointed them to two Kremlin-allied Russians who they said “have been linked . . . to significant acts of corruption.”
Underscoring that point, Fried, now an expert at the Atlantic Council, said that the list of oligarchs should be based on quality, not quantity.
“The law is intended to go after Putin’s circle,” he said. “Not just any rich Russian, not just any rich Russian who has to pay tribute to Putin, and not just any rich, corrupt Russian.”
Fried suggested that the administration use the threat of sanctions against those on the list, as well as the potential for adding more names, as leverage. Monday’s report also requires that the administration describe the potential impact of imposing sanctions on entities that do business with the oligarchs named.
