1. Various of Russian President Vladimir Putin arriving at presidential campaign event
2. Banner reading (Russian) "Strong President - Strong Russia"
3. Wide of hall
4. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"(The US sanctions include) Presidential administration, the whole of our government, all the business. Ordinary Russian citizens, employees and entire industries are behind each of those people and companies, so all 146 million people have essentially been put on this list. What is the point of this? I don't understand."
5. Audience
6. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"But this definitely isn't a friendly act. It complicates Russian-American relations which are already complicated and harms international relations in general."
7. Audience
8. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"We are not going to provoke and aggravate the situation. We want and we will be patiently building the relations as much as the other party - that of the US in this case - is willing to."
9. Audience
10. SOUNDBITE (Russian) Vladimir Putin, Russian President:
"We are not interested in ending relations, on a contrary we want to develop our relations with the United States. I'm sure that people in the US as well as people in Russia are interested in this and, overall, people in the whole world will breathe a sigh of relief if they see that two largest nuclear states are building their relations in a modern way and with respect to each other."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said the US list of top Russian officials and businesspeople to be sanctioned harms relations between the two countries.
Just 12 minutes before the deadline, US President Donald Trump's administration late on Monday released a long-awaited list of 114 Russian politicians and 96 "oligarchs" who have flourished under Putin, fulfilling a demand by Congress that the US punish Moscow for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election.
The section on political leaders includes the entire Kremlin administration and the Cabinet as well as other top officials.
Speaking at a campaign event in Moscow, Putin, who is running for president at the March election, said Russia would not "provoke and aggravate the situation", and wanted to build better relations.
He said he does not expect the publication to have any impact but expressed dismay at the scope of the officials and business people listed.
