The US Treasury’s long-awaited ‘Kremlin List’ released early on Tuesday has been mocked on Twitter. People question why it took US officials such a long time to compose if it just copies the Forbes list of Russia’s richest.
The entire Russian government was included in the US Treasury’s ‘Kremlin List,’ which also featured many influential businessmen. The report explained that the people were selected on the basis of “individuals’ official position in the case of senior political figures, or a net worth of $1 billion or more for oligarchs.”
READ MORE: Russian PM Medvedev, FM Lavrov & other top figures included in US Treasury’s ‘Kremlin List’
Twitter promptly reacted, saying that copy-pasting from Forbes “undermines credibility.” Others tweeted that it was too broad and thus counterproductive.
It also listed over a hundred political figures, which included the entire Russian government. RBC reporter Andrey Zakharov pointed out that the first part of the list repeats the “Major staff and key officials” page on the Kremlin’s website.
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of Echo of Moscow challenged the US Treasury, saying that he could have come up with the same list of Russian oligarchs in 20 minutes, instead of the months it took Washington.
Former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul retweeted Echo’s, post saying that he could have done in 15.
McFaul then added “I agree” in Russian. He also called it “ridiculously broad & thus meaningless.”
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