House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., has urged newly installed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to follow through on his pledge to increase sanctions on Russia over its war in Ukraine.
The Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze will hamstring efforts by international organizations such as Conflict Armament Research (CAR) to detect sales of American technology to foreign "adversaries," including Iran, North Korea and Russia, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said Feb. 4.
Australia has announced sanctions on several groups and people under its counterterrorism financing sanctions authority, including an online group linked to attacks on critical infrastructure, entities tied to Russia and a senior Hezbollah official.
The U.K. removed Nikolay Ivanovich Bortsov, a former member of the Russian assembly, from its Russian sanctions list on Jan. 30. Bortsov died in April 2023.
The European Commission last week published a first-of-its-kind report on dual-use export control licensing patterns that it says will give companies, governments and the public a “better understanding of how export controls are applied” within the bloc.
A bipartisan group of four House members introduced a resolution Jan. 28 calling for additional sanctions against Belarusian officials following that country’s recent “fraudulent” presidential election that extended the longtime rule of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
The U.S. and the EU should launch a new “ambitious agenda” to address trade and technology challenges posed by China, including streamlining the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council and building on sanctions and export controls, the Center for European Policy Analysis said this month.
The European Union on Jan. 27 sanctioned three Russian individuals for their "malicious cyber activities against Estonia" carried out in 2020. The individuals are all officers of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Unit 29155. The officers gained unauthorized access to classified and sensitive information stored within Estonian government ministries, "leading to the theft of thousands of confidential documents," the Council of the EU said. Unit 29155 also conducts cyberattacks against other European nations, including Ukraine, the council said.
The Council of the European Union on Jan. 27 extended its sanctions on Russia for an additional six months, pushing them to July 31. The measures include various sectoral restrictions, including those on "trade, finance, energy, technology and dual-use goods, industry, transport and luxury goods," and also include a ban on the import of oil and petroleum products from Russia.
The U.K. and Canada announced coordinated sanctions this week against people and entities tied to human rights violations committed by the Alexander Lukashenko regime in Belarus as well as the regime’s support of Russia. The U.K. is targeting several senior Belarusian officials and entities working in the country’s defense sector. The Canadian sanctions target three Belarusian state organizations, nine entities that produced or supplied military equipment for Russia, and several senior executives working for those entities.