Covered market

The Russian government transfers 126 companies to a closed purchase site, mainly with state participation, Kommersant reports . This is done to protect against US sanctions, which will be introduced in February.

From December 15, these companies will begin to make purchases on the site for the state defense order, which is administered by Sberbank. Companies will cease to disclose their counterparties, which in the documents will be denoted by numbers.

The list that the publication publishes includes four government agencies - the FSB, the SVR, the Main Directorate of the General Staff (former GRU) and the Glavgosexpertiza. The list also includes three oil companies, enterprises of the military-industrial complex, transport and machine-building companies.

Also, closed bidding, the company "Night Wolves", "Concord Management and Consulting" of entrepreneur Evgeny Prigozhin and Volga Group Gennady Timchenko were allowed. Most of these structures are already under the sanctions of the United States, the European Union or Ukraine. As the publication suggests, data on their public procurement must be closed so that other organizations that will make transactions with them do not fall under the sanctions.

The law on the expansion of sanctions against Moscow, signed on August 2, US President Donald Trump, obliges the American administration to submit a report on the richest Russian politicians and businessmen close to the leadership of Russia at the end of January 2018. The document should be evaluated by their personal capital, sources of income and business communication abroad.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that Russian businessmen are returning money to their country banks, fearing new sanctions . According to lawyers, the mention of a person in the report to Congress will not mean that sanctions will automatically extend to this person. However, in general, the August law increases risks both for companies leading business with firms already included in the sanctions list, and personally for top managers of these companies. “Everyone is sitting and waiting for what will happen, but they start money to Russia,” said one of the Reuters sources.

On Thursday, The Bell reported that the expanded sanctions list, which the US authorities will publish in February, will include companies and businessmen "close to the Russian government." One of the criteria may be to obtain large -scale state support.

According to one of the sources of The Bell, who is familiar with the course of preparing the February report to Congress, his authors "have no goal of punishing specific individuals for the annexation of Crimea or the actions of hackers, it can rather be characterized as actions against the current political regime." "The logic used by the team (previous US President Barack) Obama may seem" flowers "compared to what the current team can put up," the source noted.