(Washington) The United States announced Thursday a new salvo of sanctions targeting about twenty Russian officials, including bankers, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group and a close associate of President Vladimir Putin accused of having coordinated the forced displacement of Ukrainian children.
Posted at 1:28 p.m.
“The United States will continue to take strong action to hold Russia accountable for its war crimes, atrocities and aggression” in Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.
Some 22 officials and entities are thus blacklisted by the United States, including relatives of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, himself already sanctioned, as well as senior officials of the Russian banking system, including Vladimir Komlev who heads the system of Mir payment.
At the same time, the Treasury and Commerce Department is banning all exports to Russia and Belarus of computer materials in a bid, according to the Treasury, to impede reconstruction efforts by the Russian military, which has suffered heavy losses in its war against Ukraine launched last February.
The sanctions also target a close associate of the Russian president, Maria Lvova-Belova, who heads the Russian Presidential Commission for the Rights of Children, and who is accused of having “coordinated the forced displacement to Russia of thousands of Ukrainian children”, according to the press release.
They also concern family members of the leader of the Russian Republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, including his wives and daughters. Presented as the “hand man” of the Russian president, Ramzan Kadyrov has “accumulated extreme wealth with a house in the Emirates, a private zoo, luxury vehicles and a large slush fund”, according to the text.
Finally, the United States is targeting “Task Force Rusich”, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group associated with the Wagner group, accused of having participated in combat alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, in particular near the city of Kharkiv (north- east) in 2022.
The Wagner group is reputed to be linked to the Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigojine, himself considered close to the Russian president.
These sanctions have the effect of freezing any assets of the designated persons and limiting their financial transactions as well as, more generally, access to international financial markets.