The US Treasury’s long-awaited ‘Kremlin List’ released early on Thursday has been mocked on Twitter. People question why it took US officials such a long time to compose if it just copies the Forbes list of Russia’s richest.
The entire Russian government was included in the US Treasury’s ‘Kremlin List,’ which also featured many influential businessmen. The report explained that the people were selected on the basis of “individuals’ official position in the case of senior political figures, or a net worth of $ 1 billion or more for oligarchs.”
Twitter promptly reacted, saying that copy-pasting from Forbes “undermines credibility.” Others tweeted that it was too broad and thus counterproductive.
So the 96 “oligarch” names on the US Treasury list correspond EXACTLY to the 96 billionaires on this Forbes list of the Russian rich. https://t.co/VtjUJHXpro
— Tom Parfitt (@parfitt_tom) January 30, 2018
It is as if instead of punishing specific people for specific wrongdoings, they decided to punish Russians for being Russians.
— Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) January 30, 2018
I know personally many of the business people on this list. Some are very close to Putin. Some are not. Obviously, little work was done to distinguish between these 2 categories. https://t.co/KEPL0dpDV8
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) January 30, 2018
It also listed over a hundred political figures, which included the entire Russian government. RBC reporter Andrey Zakharov pointed out that the first part of the list repeats the “Major staff and key officials” page on the Kremlin’s website.
Вы будете смеяться, но первая часть списка Минфина США практически полностью повторяет раздел Major staff and key officials на сайте Кремля: https://t.co/TIoID4AprD В том же порядке.
— Andrey Zakharov (@skazal_on) January 30, 2018
Wonder why the Trump administration’s list of the Russian presidential administration is not alphabetized? It’s the exact copy of the English-language list on the Kremlin’s website, with two names swapping places https://t.co/hITVWvKfKA via @ARothWP
— Nataliya Vasilyeva (@NatVasilyevaAP) January 30, 2018
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow challenged the US Treasury, saying that he could have come up with the same list of Russian oligarchs in 20 minutes, instead of the months it took Washington.
“We could have come up with that list in 20 minutes.” @aavst‘s reaction on morning show to @USTreasury‘s list of influential Russians.
— Lucian Kim (@Lucian_Kim) January 30, 2018
Former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul retweeted Echo’s, post saying that he could have done in 15.
McFaul then added “I agree” in Russian. He also called it “ridiculously broad & thus meaningless.”
pp
ok, maybe. But that future act could have been done without this ridiculously broad & thus meaningless list. Listing whole GOR is a joke. & you know there are oligarchs on there that dont have close ties to Putin. Just the opposite. & some that do not listed. Its sloppy work. https://t.co/9plFlv6OxJ
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) January 30, 2018
US CAATSA list of oligarchs: 96 = catch all Russian billionaires, too many & likely to make them unite around the Kremlin. This appears counterproductive. #kremlinreport
— Anders Åslund (@anders_aslund) January 30, 2018
