The Russian oligarch list has little value for sanctions

The U.S. Treasury released this week a long-anticipated report of Russian oligarchs and Kremlin officials, as required by the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act signed into law last summer by President Trump. Section 241 of that legislation mandated that Treasury provide a list of senior political figures, oligarchs and "parastatal entities" close to the Kremlin, including an assessment of their net worth.

While there is also a classified version, the public report is basically a "who's who" of Russia — more than 200 individuals, including all the Russian cabinet ministers, presidential aides and 96 of the 200 oligarchs from the Forbes billionaire's list (96 marked the net-worth threshold for inclusion, at $1 billion). There are also individuals on the list who are already sanctioned by the U.S., like Oleg Deripaska, and others who are unlikely ever to face sanctions. (Axios highlighted several of them here.)

By publishing a list that is broad rather than differentiated to include the many proxies and cut-outs that the Kremlin elite use to hide their assets, the administration showed itself to be overcautious as best and incompetent or uncoordinated at worst.