New round of sanctions by the US targets top businessmen close to the Kremlin
The new wave of sanctions imposed on Russian businessmen by the US, including Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, may not affect their companies too harshly according to a market analyst.
"Influence on them and their companies will be quite limited."said Andrey Movchan, director of the Economic Policy Program at Carnegie Moscow Center.
"Sanctioned companies are most likely to be financially supported in one way or another," he added.
The sanctions, announced on Friday (April 6), target officials and businesspeople in President Vladimir Putin's inner circle in an aggressive response to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and other "malign activity".
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was watching events on the markets closely but that an assessment of the impact of the sanctions would take time.