US Sanctions Russian Elites, Firms for ‘Complicity’ with Ukraine War

Washington on Tuesday, July 2, imposed a new round of sanctions targeting Kremlin-connected elites for their role in supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.

“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.
The financial sanctions hit Putin-associate and billionaire Andrey Grigoryevich Guryev, who owns the Witanhurst estate, the second-largest estate in London after Buckingham Palace. They also targeted Guryev’s son and Caribbean-based yacht Alfa Nero.

Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, one of Russia’s largest taxpayers, and two subsidiaries of his MMK, which is among the world’s largest steel producers, also were slapped with sanctions, as well as two other Russian elites: Alina Maratovna Kabaeva and Natalya Valeryevna Popova, the statement said.

“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, adding that the goal is “to choke off revenue and equipment underpinning Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.”

In a joint action, the State Department imposed sanctions, including visa restrictions, on oligarchs “running massive revenue-generating companies,” including Dmitry Aleksandrovich Pumpyanskiy, Andrey Igorevich Melnichenko and Alexander Anatolevich Ponomarenko, as well as nearly 900 officials, and a series of defense- and technology-related firms aiding “Russia’s war machine.”

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The Kremlin seems to think that more than a few of its top officers are responsible for filching millions of rubles’ worth of cash and military resources from the Russian war effort.

The Treasury sanctions seize any US-based funds or property owned by the individuals or organizations, and prohibit American-based firms from having any financial dealings with them, although investors will have a few weeks to wind down transactions with MMK.