Poroshenko signs latest wave of Russian sanctions

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree
on Mar. 20 imposing a new wave of sanctions that targeted 294 enterprises and
848 individuals that participated in Russian aggression against Ukraine. The
sanctions were approved the prior day by the National Security and Defense
Council. The sanctions list includes those who participated in building the
Crimean Bridge, attacking and capturing Ukrainian navy boats on Nov. 25 and
arresting Ukrainian navy sailors, organizing and conducting pseudo-elections on
the occupied territories, violating Ukrainian law on visiting Crimea,
distributing publications of an anti-Ukrainian nature and illegally taking and
using museum collections that belong to Ukraine. The sanctions also include the
leaders of the Federation Council, State Duma members and Russian state
officials. The president’s decree also imposed restrictions on individuals and
enterprises already targeted by the E.U., U.S. and Canadian sanctions, as well
as extended sanctions against four banks with Russian capital. Restrictions
were canceled against eight enterprises.

Zenon Zawada: It’s
important for the Ukrainian government to be at the lead of imposing sanctions
against Russia so that it doesn’t appear as if the West is doing the hard work,
and making the hard sacrifices, that Ukraine should also be doing. Yet new
sanctions are not only ceasing to impress the Ukrainian public (particularly
after the Russian military parts scandal),
but they’re having the opposite effect of stretching the patience of the
public, which has become increasingly exhausted with the ongoing warfare and
more open to the compromises that presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelenskiy is hinting at (viewed by
many as capitulation). We have stated since the outbreak of warfare in Donbas
that Russia’s strategy would be to exhaust the resources of Ukraine, as well as
the patience of the public. This strategy is bearing fruit with Zelenskiy’s popularity.