Lawmakers Call for Sanctioning More Russians for Corruption, Repression

The four lawmakers who lead the U.S. Helsinki Commission, also known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged the Trump administration last week to sanction additional Russian officials and private citizens involved in corruption or human rights abuses.

In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the lawmakers attached a list of 50 individuals compiled by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, whose founder, Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, died under suspicious circumstances in a Russian prison in 2024. Only a few people on the list have been sanctioned by the U.S., the document says.

The people on the list “are connected to Russia’s corrupt network of power and are complicit in gross human rights abuses in Russia and Ukraine,” the lawmakers wrote. “Those who benefit from the bloodshed in Ukraine, and from robbing their own compatriots, should not be allowed to enjoy their ill-gotten gains in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe -- which is why coordinating sanctions policy with our allies is so essential.”

The letter notes that the U.S. “has already imposed significant sanctions on Russian industrial, finance, and energy sectors, in addition to personal sanctions on specific corrupt actors and facilitators of destruction in Ukraine.”

The letter is signed by Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Reps. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. Wicker and Wilson are the commission’s chairman and co-chairman, respectively. Whitehouse and Cohen are both ranking members.

The State and Treasury departments had no immediate comment on the letter.