Hardship payments will be available of 60% of the sanctioned amount for those who cannot meet their "immediate and most basic and essential needs for accommodation, heating, food and hygiene".
Despite the delay, Thursday's sanctions amount to the harshest penalties imposed by the White House against Russia to date.
In exchange, Tehran is receiving, also in phases, relief from economic sanctions amounting to between six and seven billion dollars.
"The Iraqi victims of these unjust and unrestricted sanctions amounted to more than a million children, women and elderly people during the past 10 years," Iraq's deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, told a summit meeting of world leaders last week.
According to one lobbyist with foreign clients, the sanctions amounted to the narrowest action the United States could have taken while still appearing to "take action".
In Moscow, sanctioned Russian officials mocked the U.S. announcement, while in Washington, U.S. lobbyists who represent foreign clients said they were relieved that the sanctions amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist.
Suffocating international sanctions now amount to an economic war.
The remaining nine were given limited sanctions that amount to written warnings.
Citizens will be asked whether the government should push for an end to sanctions, which amount to a refusal by European ministers to meet their Austrian counterparts formally.
While North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations warned that any Security Council effort to impose economic sanctions would amount to "a declaration of war," two North Korean officials pursued more conciliatory private talks in Santa Fe, N.M., with Gov. Bill Richardson, their chosen intermediary, who was in close consultation with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
