WASHINGTON: The United States punished dozens of Russian oligarchs and government officials on Friday with sanctions that took direct aim at President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, as President Donald Trump’s administration tried to show he’s not afraid to take tough action against Moscow.

Seven Russian tycoons, including aluminium magnate Oleg Deripaska, were targeted, along with 17 officials and a dozen Russian companies, the Treasury Department said. Senior Trump administration officials cast it as part of a concerted, ongoing effort to push back on Putin, emphasising that since Trump took office last year, the US has punished 189 Russian-related people and entities with sanctions.

Rather than punishing Russia for one specific action, the new sanctions hit back at the Kremlin for its “ongoing and increasingly brazen pattern” of bad behaviour, said the officials. The officials ticked through a list of complaints about Russian actions overseas, including its annexation of Crimea, backing of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, and cyber-hacking.

Above all else, Russia’s attempts to subvert Western democracy prompted the US sanctions, officials said, in a direct nod to concerns that the US president has failed to challenge Putin for alleged interference in the 2016 election that brought Trump to power.

To the dismay of Trump’s critics and of Russia hawks, the president has continued to avoid directly criticising Putin himself, and recently invited the Russian leader to meet with him, possibly at the White House. Yet in recent weeks Trump’s administration has rolled out a series of actions including several economic and diplomatic steps to increase pressure on Putin and those presumed to benefit from his power.

“Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have,” Trump said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Deripaska, whose business conglomerate controls assets from agriculture to machinery, has been a prominent figure in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation over his ties to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The Treasury said Deripaska was accused of illegal wiretaps, extortion, racketeering, money laundering and even death threats against business rivals.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2018