The U.S. is facing a “real challenge” trying to meet growing EU demand for oil but is hopeful it can eventually help replace the bloc’s reliance on Russian energy imports, said Melanie Nakagawa, a National Security Council official. Nakagawa, speaking during an April 26 event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, said the U.S. is prioritizing efforts to create more U.S. energy export infrastructure so suppliers can ship more gas to the EU.
The U.K. amended its general license permitting certain activity with sanctioned Russian banks to include Sberbank CIB (UK), the British subsidiary of Sberbank, it said April 22. The license allows Sberbank CIB (UK) or any entity owned or controlled by the bank and incorporated in the U.K. to pay expenses for their "base needs," routine holding and maintenance expenses, and reasonable professional fees for the provision of legal services. The amended license took effect March 1 and will expire April 3, 2023.
The EU in a series of five notices announced the alignment of certain non-EU European countries with the bloc's recent sanctions moves on Russian and Belarus. North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Ukraine and Georgia agreed to also impose the humanitarian exceptions the EU had implemented for its sectoral sanctions for the provision of goods in Ukraine and Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The EU added new names to its Russian and North Korean sanctions regimes. Under the EU's sanctions regime relating to the Russian annexation of Crimea, the European Council April 21 added businessmen Serhiy Vitaliyovich Kurchenko and Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin to its list of individuals subject to a travel ban and asset freeze. Kurchenko took control of various metallurgical, chemical and energy plants in the separatist-held areas of Crimea. Prigozhin founded and serves as the unofficial leader of the Russian-based mercenary entity the Wagner Group, the council said.
Although EU export controls and sanctions on Russia don’t necessarily apply to Chinese-based subsidiaries of EU companies, European businesses should keep in mind that they can’t use their Chinese business to circumvent the restrictions, law firm CMS said in an April 21alert. Chinese subsidies are “incorporated under Chinese law” and “not, in principle, bound by the measures,” but their EU parent companies can’t use them to evade any “obligations that apply to the EU parent company,” the firm said. This includes “delegating to them decisions which run counter to the sanctions, or by approving such decisions by the Chinese subsidiary.”
Australia on April 22 announced another round of sanctions against Russia, designating 147 more people for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions target 144 Russian senators, two daughters of President Vladimir Putin and one daughter of Foreign Minister Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov. Australia said it now imposes sanctions on nearly 750 people and entities for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Keeping pace with the multinational sanctions targeting Russia remains a difficult task for lawyers and businesses, even some two months after its invasion of Ukraine, lawyers at Crowell & Moring said during an April 21 webinar hosted by the firm.
Aviastar, the Russian cargo airline made subject to a temporary denial order last week (see 2204210043), continued to illegally fly multiple U.S.-origin aircraft after the U.S. in March announced restrictions on those flights (see 2203020072), including to China, the Bureau of Industry and Security said in its April 21 order. Flights included trips from the Russian cities of Novosibirsk and Abakan to the Chinese cities of Hangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhengzhou. All the trips, which took place April 5 to April 12, required approved license applications.
The EU is aiming for a sixth sanctions package next month, European Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told reporters in Washington, but there is still not unanimity among the 27 countries on how to treat Russian oil and on what to do about Sberbank.
The U.K. House of Commons released a research briefing April 20 that highlights British sanctions against Russia since 2014 and the current waves of restrictions relating to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The report also discusses the role of secondary sanctions, efforts to crack down on loopholes aimed at circumventing sanctions and work on coordinating the measures with allies.