MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s interior ministry has placed Sergei Aleksashenko, formerly a deputy governor of the Bank of Russia and a deputy finance minister, on its wanted list, Russian state news agencies TASS and RIA reported on Saturday.
Aleksashenko, who has criticised Russia’s war in Ukraine, has been living in exile in the United States after falling out with President Vladimir Putin’s government and had already been designated a “foreign agent”.
TASS reported that Aleksashenko had been added to the interior ministry’s wanted list on an unspecified criminal charge.
Reuters could not immediately access the ministry’s overall database and Aleksashenko could not immediately be reached for comment.
On his Telegram channel, Aleksashenko said he had been listed on the database for five years already, but suggested that being added to the wanted list was a new development.
Russian lawmaker Vasiliy Piskarev this week said Aleksashenko and Sergei Guriev, economics professor at France’s Sciences Po, were engaged in shaping sanctions against Russia through their involvement with Stanford University’s international working group on Russian sanctions.
Piskarev, who heads the lower house of parliament’s committee on investigating foreign states’ interference in Russia’s internal affairs, accused the two economists of state treason.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
