The Treasury and State departments on Tuesday imposed a slew of new sanctions on Russian elites and businesses, seeking to hold “enablers” of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accountable for their alleged roles in the violence, officials said.
The joint sanctions mark the latest attempt by the United States to punish Russia for its military operations in Ukraine and to weaken the influence of the people and institutions that have supported or been complicit in the war.
“As innocent people suffer from Russia’s illegal war of aggression, Putin’s allies have enriched themselves and funded opulent lifestyles,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement Tuesday.
“The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that Russian elites and the Kremlin’s enablers are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives,” Yellen said. “Together with our allies, the United States will also continue to choke off revenue and equipment underpinning Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.”
New sanctions include visa restrictions, sanctions on a multinational company and designations for oligarchs and entities involved in finance, technology and scientific research. A yacht belonging to an oligarch was designated as “blocked property.”
The State Department announced it was restricting the visas of 893 Russian Federation members and 31 foreign government officials who it says have supported the Russian annexation of Crimea and the nation’s current war on Ukraine.
Treasury added six individuals, including a former Russian lawmaker, and three companies to the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanction list. The State Department added 33 companies and organizations to the list, and designated three oligarchs and four individuals in leadership of Russian-controlled territories as “Putin enablers.”
The measures announced Tuesday follow earlier rounds of sanctions. Between February and April, U.S. officials imposed what White House officials then called “devastating” restrictions on Russia, including sanctions on Russia’s largest bank, state businesses and government officials and their relatives.
President Joe Biden signed an executive order banning American investment in Russia, and the Treasury Department prohibited Russia from raising money from the West to make debt payments.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken in July to designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. The United Nations General Assembly voted in April to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council over allegations that Russian soldiers had committed war crimes in Ukraine.
Treasury also announced Tuesday it had uncovered an attempt by the Russian Direct Investment Fund to use another Russian-owned financial institution to evade sanctions. The RDIF had planned to transfer all of its funds to an institution owned by the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management, Treasury officials said.
“The transfer of assets and cash was thought to be a viable method to evade restrictions on RDIF,” the announcement said. “With today’s action, OFAC has sent a clear message that those who facilitate U.S. sanctions evasion will themselves be sanctioned.”
For the scheme, the company Joint Stock Company Promising Industrial and Infrastructure Technologies found itself among those sanctioned on Tuesday. Anton Sergeevich Urusov, the company’s general director, was among the six sanctioned by Treasury.
