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Lavrov surprised it took so long to draft Washington's 'Kremlin List'

"They could have done it much, much faster," he said

© Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS

MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday jokingly he was surprised at how much time the U.S. officials needed to draw up the so-called Kremlin list.

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"I just saw from the TV screen the surnames of people they included in that report," he told Rossiya 24 news channel. "One of the things among many others that surprised me was that the instruction to compile the list was made in a law adopted in August."

"It took them five months to get familiarized with a directory that contains the names of government members and with a directory that contains the names of the Presidential Administration staff," Lavrov said. "They could have done it much, much faster."

The U.S. Department of the Treasury published an open version of the so-called Kremlin report on Monday. It lists all the members of the Russian government including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the staff members of the Presidential Administration, the heads of a number of state corporations and banks, and business executives.

Washington placed Lavrov on the list, too.

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