The US Treasury has announced on Tuesday it is extending the divestiture deadline, giving investors one more month to divest or transfer their holdings in the sanctions-hit United Company RUSAL PLC, En+ Group PLC and GAZ Group. The treasury has extended the deadline to June 6 from the earlier set May 7.
On April 6, the United States government rolled out new sanctions, saying the move was over Moscow's alleged "worldwide malign activity". The sanctions hit senior government officials and lawmakers, as well as major private and state-owned companies and their owners. The sanctions list included Oleg Deripaska with the En+ Group, the GAZ Group, Basic Element and RUSAL; Viktor Vekselberg with the Renova Group; Suleiman Kerimov, Kirill Shamalov, Gazprom head Alexey Miller, and VTB Bank President Andrey Kostin.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier that Moscow did not see any real US steps which would evidence Washington’s desire for de-escalation in the country's relations with Russia noting that the sanctions against Rusal, US restrictions "painfully hit" the company's consumers around the world.
