Is say “Trump”, but I have a feeling Trump is not gung-ho about this:
The United States imposed new economic sanctions on senior Russian politicians, companies and business leaders Friday, citing a list of complaints including Moscow’s attempts to undermine Western democracies, support of separatists in Ukraine and its backing for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The sanctions — the Trump administration’s most aggressive action against Kremlin-connected individuals — target 17 Russian government officials, a state-owned weapons trading company, and seven so-called oligarchs and 12 companies affiliated with them.
“The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities.”
The list of targets includes individuals with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, including Igor Rotenberg and Kirill Shamalov, both major players in Russia’s energy sector, and Rosoboronexport, a state-owned Russian weapons trading company that has been linked to the Syrian government, Russia’s key ally in the Middle East. In 2013, Shamalov married Putin’s daughter.
The list also includes Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a billionaire with alleged ties to President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who is facing money laundering charges, and banker Sergei Gorkov, who was dispatched by Russia in December 2016 to meet Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at Trump Tower in New York.
Senior administration officials on Friday stressed that the sanctions were not aimed at the Russian people. Instead, they were meant to cripple the finances of those elites who have “disproportionately benefited from the bad decisions made by the Kremlin on their behalf,” according to one of the officials.
The officials declined to elaborate on why Putin himself was not directly targeted by the sanctions, but they emphasized that several in the Russian leader’s inner circle were being sanctioned.
Yeah, I can guess why Putin isn’t being sanctioned personally.