U.S. announces widened sanctions list against Russia

The U.S. Treasury Department published on Dec. 23 a widened list of sanctions against Russia to include 12 individuals and 22 enterprises targeted for personal sanctions, among them Crimea-based enterprises and companies that aided Russian oligarchs in evading earlier sanctions, former Yanukovych administration ministers (including Dmytro Tabachnyk and Vitaliy Zakharchenko) and leaders of the Russian-backed terrorists in Donbas, including Vladyslav Deynega.

The list update also contains 87 companies that are subsidiaries of three Russian state holdings, leading banks Sberbank and VTB Bank as well as high-technology holding Rostec. These 87 companies have already been subject to sanctions since September 2014, as they are 50%+ held by sanctioned parent companies, according to the Treasury’s press release. “These identifications will help the public more effectively comply with the sanctions,” the press release stated. The sanction list now officially includes all the international subsidiaries of Sberbank and VTB Bank, including its Ukrainian ones.

The U.S. sanctions imposed are illogical and the Russian government will respond in kind, said on Dec. 22 Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Russian Presidential Administration. “Our colleagues in Washington, knowing ahead of time that all their efforts to influence us with sanctions are doomed to fail, nonetheless are relying on their own deceit,” said the same day Sergei Riabkov, the deputy head of the Russian Foreign Ministry. He referred to the new round of sanctions as a shot in the leg to Russian-American relations.

Zenon Zawada: With these measures, the U.S. has confirmed that Ukraine remains a foreign policy priority, despite the warring in Syria and despite some slight friction in Europe over Ukraine. We are confident that these sanctions are effective in influencing opinions and actions in Moscow, despite the claims by the Russian Foreign Ministry that the sanctions won’t sway the Russian government.