Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced June 2 that the U.S. State Department had designated five more influential members of Russia's elite for their role in supporting the President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation.
The oligarchs and elites, who include two influential business leaders who are listed in Forbes' 2022 billionaires list, their family members and entities associated with them have been designated, according to a State Department news statement.
“Ukraine is fighting valiantly to defend its people and its independence with unprecedented assistance from the United States and countries around the world,” Blinken said, according to the statement. “The United States will continue to support the people of Ukraine while promoting accountability for President Putin and those enabling Russian aggression.”
Those designated include Maria Zakharova, who has previously been designated by the European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, due to her role as the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the statement said.
Also on the list are Sergei Gorkov, head of RosGeo (Russian Geological Exploration Holding), and Evgeny Novitsky. The final two are influential billionaires God Nisanov and Alexey Mordashov.
Nisanov and Mordashov are on Forbes' World's Billionaires List for 2022 and have extensive business holdings in Russia. In March the White House also placed sanctions on billionaires Boris Rotenberg, Arkady Rotenberg and Alisher Usmanov.
Russia has 34 fewer billionaires due to Putin’s Ukraine invasion, according to Forbes. Its wealth history shows steep drops for Nisanov and Mordashov in 2022, with Nisanov falling to $1.3 billion in 2022 from $3.4 billion in 2021. Mordashov fell to $13.2 billion from $29.1 billion.
Mordashov, his wife and two adult children were designated, as were four of his companies: Severgroup; Severstal; Algoritm; and Nord Gold, the statement noted.
