U.S. Increases Sanctions on Russia
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security expanded its export restrictions on Russia as part of a series of increased sanctions on Russia related to the country's continued role in Ukranian political unrest. "BIS will institute a policy denying export, reexport or foreign transfer of certain items for use in Russia’s energy sector that may be used for exploration or production from deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil," the agency said. BIS said it will also add OJSC United Shipbuilding to its Entity List. "While these sanctions do not target or interfere with the current supply of energy from Russia or prevent Russian companies from selling oil and gas to any country, they make it difficult for Russia to develop long-term, technically challenging future projects."
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The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also added five new Russian entities to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, it said (here) on July 29.
OFAC added the following Russian and Ukrainian entities to the SDN list (BIS also added these entities to the Entity List):
- United Shipbuilding Corporation (Russia)
OFAC also added the following entities to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List:
- United Shipbuilding Corporation, (Russia)
- Bank of Moscow (Russia)
- Russian Agricultural Bank (A.K.A. Rosselkhozbank) (Russia)
- VTB Bank OAO (Russia)
The additional U.S. sanctions were issued soon after the European Union issued a number of its own sanctions (here). The E.U. measure include:
- a limit on access to EU primary and secondary capital markets for Russian state-owned financial institutions
- an embargo on trade in arms
- an export ban for dual-use goods for military end users
- a limit to Russian access to certain sensitive technologies that can be used for oil production and exploration