Democrats demand sanctions against 35 Russians, including prime minister, alleging ‘human rights abuses’

The House Rules Committee has approved the amendment put forth by Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-New Jersey), giving the Biden administration a six-month deadline to submit a report on whether any of the 35 individuals listed by name meet the criteria to be blacklisted under the Global Magnitsky Act, an anti-Russian sanctions law.

First on the list is Roman Abramovich, a Russian-Israeli businessman best known as the owner of the Premier League football club Chelsea. Other business figures on the list include VTB bank executives Denis Bortnikov and Andrey Kostin; businessmen Oleg Deripaska, Alisher Usmanov and Gennady Timchenko; Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin; as well as Transneft chairman Nikolai Tokarev.

A number of senior government officials are also mentioned by name: Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko and Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Kartapolov. 

Targeting the Kremlin, the bill lists presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov, the presidential chief of staff Anton Vaino and his first deputy Sergei Kirienko.

Governors of Moscow region Andrey Vorobyev and Leningrad region Alexander Beglov were also on the list, along with Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, Central Election Commission head Ella Pamfilova, head of the federal prison service Alexander Kalashnikov, and chair of the state development corporation VEB Igor Shuvalov. So were the chiefs of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov and the Investigative Committee (Sledkom) Alexander Bastrykin, and National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov.

A number of junior state and local officials were likewise listed, including transport chief of Economic Security Service Victor Gavrilov, head of the Chelyabinsk FSB Dmitry Ivanov, Khimki district judge Elena Morozova and police chief Igor Yanchuk, Moscow chief prosecutor Denis Popov. The sanctions proposal included former chief prosecutor general Yuri Chaika and former deputy justice minister Pavel Krasheninnikov. 

In addition to government officials, the list included RT editor in chief Margarita Simonyan, Channel 1 CEO Konstantin Ernst, and TV talk show host Vladimir Solovyev.

Congressional staffer Paul Massaro described the proposal as an “amazing counter-kleptocracy national defense bill.” It is attached to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the must-pass bill to fund the US military, which is currently making its way through the House and the Senate.

Sanctions against any of the listed individuals would be based on the Global Magnitsky Act, a 2016 expansion of the 2012 law adopted by the US at the urging of international investor Bill Browder, who has sought to counter charges of tax evasion against him in Russia with claims of human rights violations by the Kremlin. 

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