The U.S. Commerce Department on Sept. 2 added 29 companies to its list of sanctioned companies, all of which are affiliated with Russian firms that are currently facing restrictive measures.
An
accompanying statement from the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security says they were added for “violating
international law and fueling the conflict in eastern Ukraine. These additions
ensure the efficacy of existing sanctions on Russia.”
The names
listed are largely subsidiaries of companies already targeted by U.S.
sanctions, including Russia’s largest oil company Rosneft, arms maker Kalashnikov
Concern and six Crimean ports. Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimean territory in February and subsequently annexed the peninsula the next month via a sham referendum that the West didn’t recognize.
The move is
an attempt to crackdown on the evasion of sanctions by major Russian
companies through affiliates and addresses abroad. The list includes registered domiciles in Russia, occupied Crimea, Ukraine, Switzerland, Cyprus, and the
British Virgin Islands.
Russia
reacted angrily to the announcement of the increased U.S. sanctions. In a
statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. move was “not just
another manifestation of the failure of the U.S. administration to properly
assess what is happening in Ukraine, (but) a reflection of the entrenched line taken
in ruling circles in the United States for the conscious, consistent
destruction of the basis for the normalization of Russian-U.S. relations.
“We
emphasize this: the United States should have no illusions about being able to
continue on this line without there being negative consequences for itself. A
response, not necessarily a symmetrical one, will follow from our side.”
Meanwhile,
in the European Union, senior officials at a meeting on Sept. 2 decided to
extend individual sanctions imposed on Russia and Russian-backed separatists. A
total of 150 Russian and
separatist individuals and 37 firms are currently subject to an asset freeze
and travel ban imposed by the 28-nation political bloc. The measures will now be prolonged until
March 2016, despite earlier suggestions that they would receive only a
four-month extension. The restrictive measures would otherwise be due to expire on
Sept. 15.
EU officials will sign off on the sanctions extension at a meeting on Sept. 14, according to
EU diplomats.
Ukrainian
President Petro Poroshenko was in Brussels on Aug. 27 to push for the
continuation of the EU’s sanctions.
At a joint news conference with Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European
Commission, Poroshenko said that “in order to answer the (Russian) aggressor appropriately,
we should preserve unity including as regards to the continued sanction
pressure on Russia, to prompt it to sit at the negotiating table and implement
the obligations that it undertook in Minsk.”
Individuals targeted by the EU’s sanctions include Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister
Dmitry Rogozin, Crimean Prime Minister Sergei Aksionov and Chechen leader
Ramzan Kadyrov. Vnesheconombank, Gazprombank and Kalashnikov Concern are on the
list of sanctioned companies.
Wider EU-U.S. economic sanctions targeting Russia’s
energy, arms and banking sectors will remain in place until January 2016, after
a meeting in June confirmed a six-month extension.
Both the U.S. and EU have pledged to lift the
sanctions only when all the conditions of the February Minsk agreement are met.
After months of repeated violations, the latest ceasefire, implemented on Sept.
1, has generally appeared to hold through its first 24 hours. However, two Ukrainian members of an anti-smuggling
unit were reported killed in a shootout on Sept. 2, and tension in the war zone
remains high. Four soldiers were wounded in the same incident, the Defense
Ministry said. The men killed were a Ukrainian tax official and a volunteer.
Sandra MacKenzie can be reached at [email protected]. Kyiv Post editors Euan MacDonald and Mark Rachkevych contributed to this report.
