The US enforces fresh restrictions on Russia and additional nations amidst ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
According to the US Treasury and State Departments, there are institutions involved in three LNG projects, the Moscow Exchange, and several subsidiaries that have been affected. These developments are expected to complicate transactions worth billions of dollars.
US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, stated that they are increasing the risk for financial institutions involved in Russia's war economy, closing loopholes, and reducing Russia's ability to benefit from access to foreign technology, equipment, software, and IT services.
US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, expressed the concerns of the United States over the "scale and diversity" of Chinese exports to Russia, which help Russia's military-industrial complex.
Currently, foreign banks are only penalized if they support Russia's defense industry. However, the new measures will also include financial institutions that conduct transactions involving sanctioned individuals or Russian banks such as VTB or Sberbank. Therefore, the number of potential targets increases from 1,000 to 4,500, as per the Treasury Department.
The new sanctions also target international networks involving more than 90 individuals and institutions in China, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Along with this, the Commerce Department announced that it had added eight addresses in Hong Kong to the sanctions list to punish letterbox companies.
Russia has announced its response to the new US sanctions wave. "As always in such cases, Russia will not leave this aggressive action unanswered," said Maria Zakharova, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, in a report by the state news agency Tass. The Moscow Exchange has declared that it would stop trading in dollars and euros.
The US announcements were made just a day before the start of the G7 summit in Italy. The leaders of the seven major industrialized nations are expected to present a plan to the White House, according to which a loan for Ukraine would be financed through the interest earnings on frozen Russian assets.
