ALGIERS, January 31. /TASS/. Secretary of Russia’s Security Council Nikolai Patrushev has called the US "Kremlin List" another Washington’s attempt to hide domestic problems behind external threats.
"The "Kremlin report" published yesterday is nothing else than a new US attempt to hide domestic problems behind external threats," Patrushev, who is also mentioned in the list, told reporters on Wednesday.
This list will neither change Russia’s foreign policy nor influence its authority on the international arena, Patrushev said, noting that this "shortsighted move" will negatively affect bilateral contacts.
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"The US policy in regional and international affairs, which envisages countering such external threats as Russia and China, is aimed at distracting the Americans’ attention from a difficult domestic situation in the United States, the accrued problems in social and economic areas, and also the authorities’ inability to effectively solve the problems they are facing, also due to the lack of coordination between the departments and agencies," Patrushev said.
The Russian security chief recalled that the keynote of the national security and defense strategy published late last year and early this year was to restore the US global position by using force. "If the national security strategy named among the key threats for the US terrorism and ISIL [former name of the Islamic State terror group, outlawed in Russia] and only then Russia and China, and also North Korea and Iran, the January national defense strategy already says that Russia and China are major world peace breakers and threats for US security," he noted.
On Monday, the US Treasury Department published the unclassified portion of the "Kremlin List" that includes all members of the Russian government and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the leadership of the presidential administration and heads of state corporations and banks, and also businessmen with a net worth of $1 billion or more.
The list, which has 210 names, is divided into several sections - the presidential administration, the cabinet of ministers, as well as "political leaders" and "oligarchs." This is not a sanctions list and no restrictions are being slapped on those mentioned in the document, the Treasury Department stresses.