Washington does not intend to put Russian UC Rusal out of business by sanctioning the company, the US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in an interview to Bloomberg TV. 

“The first aspect would be that he sells down below 50 percent. Our objective was not to put Rusal out of business and that’s why we extended the license,” Mnuchin said.

As reported earlier, on April 23 the US Department decided to lift the restrictions on the company if its owner Oleg Deripaska reduces his stake to less than 50 percent.

At the beginning of April, the US decides to impose sanctions on 12 Russian companies, including Basic Element, En + Group and Kuban Agro, 17 senior Russian government officials.