DOJ plans to expand its work with Ukraine to help it combat Russia sanctions evasion, the agency said this week. The agency will specifically send Ukraine an “expert” DOJ prosecutor to “advise on fighting kleptocracy, corruption, and money laundering” and will deploy two additional attorneys from the Office of International Affairs to support the department’s KleptoCapture Task Force. The lawyers will work “closely” with their EU counterparts and Middle Eastern countries to “facilitate mutual legal assistance and extraditions relating to Russian illicit finance and sanctions evasion, including with respect to designated Russian oligarchs who have supported the Russian regime and its efforts to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty,” DOJ said.
The U.K.'s Export Control Joint Unit on June 23 introduced new export restrictions against Russia. The restrictions prohibit the "export, supply and delivery, making available and transfer" of goods and technology used for internal repression, relating to biological and chemical weapons and maritime, as well as additional oil refining and critical industry. Further restrictions include bans on the export of jet fuel and fuel additives, sterling or EU-denominated banknotes and prohibitions on the import, acquisition or supply and delivery of revenue-generating goods that originate in or are consigned from Russia.
There isn’t a “coherent” strategy among the various bills in Congress to address international technology competition, said Jon Bateman, a technology policy expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Bateman, speaking during a June 23 event hosted by Foreign Policy magazine, said the lack of coherence isn’t “altogether surprising, partly because the government is “classically plagued with coherence problems.”
The Bureau of Industry and Security on June 24 suspended the export privileges of three Russian airlines for violating U.S. export controls against Belarus. The agency issued 180-day temporary denial orders for Nordwind Airlines, Pobeda Airlines and Siberian Airlines, BIS said, banning all three airlines from participating in transactions subject to the Export Administration Regulations.
Lithuania barred transport of EU-sanctioned goods via rail lines through its land to the Russian region of Kaliningrad, The Washington Post reported. The Russian government said June 21 that Lithuania would face "serious" consequences for the move. The Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said June 20 that the transit of passengers and goods not covered by EU sanctions will continue uninterrupted. The Foreign Ministry pointed to the fourth package of EU sanctions to discuss the trade that had been halted between Lithuania and Kaliningrad -- a Russian area that houses Moscow's Baltic Sea Fleet but has no land connection to the rest of the country -- and that includes steel and other ferrous metal products.
U.S.-EU cooperation on export controls, sanctions and other trade issues bodes well for the future of multilateral cooperation, said Rupert Schlegelmilch, a senior trade official with the European Commission, speaking during a June 22 event hosted by the Atlantic Council. Schlegelmilch specifically praised the work of the Trade and Technology Council’s export control working group (see 2206010007 and 2205160033), which allowed both sides to respond quickly to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
It’s still too early to regulate quantum technologies through export controls and other means, two tech industry officials said during an event this week hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Although the Commerce Department is studying new export controls on certain slices of quantum technologies, strict regulations risk hurting American competitiveness, the officials said.
Manfred Low Cheng Jing, a Singaporean national, was sentenced to 15 weeks in prison by the Singapore State Courts for obstructing investigations into alleged violations of the U.N. sanctions regime on North Korea, the Singaporean 24-hour news channel CNA reported. Low worked as a director of oil trading and bunkering company Yuk Tung Energy in 2018 while it was being investigated by the Singapore Police Force over a ship-to-ship transfer of "gasoil" from the MT Yuk Tung ship to the North Korean-flagged ship Rye Song Gang 1. A commercial arrangement was made to have Yuk Tung Energy charter the MT Yuk Tung. Through his position, Low tallied invoices over the company's business dealings and reviewed contracts, explaining them to the company's "key decision-maker," Benito Aloria Yap.
The EU renewed until June 23, 2023, its sanctions regime over Russia's annexation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, the European Council announced June 20. Originally introduced in 2014, the restrictions' sectoral sanctions include import bans on goods originating from Crimea or Sevastopol into the EU and financial investments from the affected areas. The council also barred the export of certain goods and technologies to Crimean companies or for use in Crimea.
The EU added three people and one entity to its terrorist sanctions regime, since the parties were linked to al-Qaida's operations in the Sahel region, the European Council announced June 20. The entries are Sidan Ag-Hitta and Salem ould Breihmatt, senior officials with the al-Qaida affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam Wal-Muslimin, along with the terrorist group's Burkinabe branch Ansarul Islam and its leader Jafar Dicko. The council said the sanctioned parties are responsible for terrorist attacks against civilians at home and in Mali and Burkina Faso, and contribute to the expansion of the terrorist group throughout Western Africa.