Obama and Putin (archive)
Obama and Putin (archive)Reuters

Russia has threatened the United States with a “painful response”, after President Barack Obama announced new sanctions targeting a list of individuals and companies.

Sergey Ryabkov, Russia's deputy minister for foreign relations, told CNN the sanctions were "meaningless, shameful, and disgusting."

"It will only intensify all the processes in Ukraine which it intends to change or stop," Ryabkov said.

"It is yet another sign of a reckless behavior of the U.S. administration. No lessons are learned from the past. The U.S. does literally nothing to impress its cronies and clients in Kiev on whom there is full responsibility for constant deterioration of the situation in Ukraine. This is what needs to be changed and not the policy of Russia,” he added.

"A response of Moscow will follow, and it will be painfully felt in Washington D.C.," threatened Ryabkov.

The latest sanctions target high-technology exports to Russia's defense industry and take aim at Russian billionaires who are close to President Vladimir Putin.

According to CNN, the announcement named seven officials, including two members of Putin's inner circle.

The seven are: Oleg Belavantsev, Russia's envoy to Crimea; Sergei Chemezov, who oversees Russia's high-tech sector as head of state-owned corporation Rostec and is "a trusted ally of Putin," according to the White House; Dmitry Kozak, deputy prime minister; Evgeniy Murov, director of Russia's Federal Protective Service; Aleksei Pushkov, deputy of the State Duma; Igor Sechin, president of Russia's leading petroleum company, Rosneft; and Vyacheslav Volodin, Putin's first deputy chief of staff.

The United States and the EU previously responded to Russia’s actions in Ukraine by imposing personal sanctions against Russian and Crimean officials involved in the seizure of the peninsula.

Putin, however, has remained unfazed by EU and U.S. economic sanctions, and has responded by drafting his own sanctions on top American senators.