NEW YORK (Reuters) - The most startling part of Washington's sanctions on Russian businessmen loyal to President Vladimir Putin may be a single sentence that contains an explosive allegation: that Putin himself profits from the world's No. 4 oil trading company, Gunvor.
Among the people the United States sanctioned on Thursday as part of its drive to put pressure on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine was businessman Gennady Timchenko, a long-time acquaintance of Putin and, until this week, co-owner of Geneva-based Gunvor, which trades nearly 3 percent of the world's oil.