The European Council sanctioned 22 Belarusian military officials for their roles in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Belarus is permitting the Russian military to fire ballistic missiles from Belarus, transport military personnel and heavy weapons and tanks into Ukraine and fly over Belarusian airspace into Ukraine, the council said March 2. The Belarusian military also provides refueling points for the Russian military and stores Russian weapons and equipment. The 22 individuals will be subject to a travel ban and asset freeze.
The Biden administration needs more funding to bolster its sanctions and export controls targeting Russia, the White House told Congress this week. The administration specifically asked for more resources for the Bureau of Industry and Security as it enforces dual-use export restrictions and more staff and funding for the Treasury Department for “sanctions targeting.”
The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued more sanctions on Russian elites and their families who "provide direct and indirect support to the Government of the Russian Federation" by identifying certain property of these persons as blocked. The designees include Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, Nikolay Burhanovich Tokarev, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, and their families. The sanctions were done "in close coordination with the European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, the ROK, and Australia," according to the OFAC annoucement.
The Bureau of Industry and Security announced new export controls on Russia’s oil refinery sector and added 91 entities to the Entity List for supporting Russian security or military sectors. The new restrictions, which took effect March 3, build on an extensive set of U.S. sanctions announced within the last week in response to the invasion of Ukraine, meant to cut Russia off from importing goods that help support and fund its military.
President Joe Biden has vowed to continue imposing tough sanctions on Russia, saying that the U.S. and allies will look to seize the property of sanctioned Russian oligarchs and cut Russia’s military off from sensitive technologies. The U.S. and allies will “find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets,” Biden said in a message to Russian oligarchs and government officials during his March 1 State of the Union address. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”
The U.K. increased its sanctions on Russia, designating the Russian Direct Investment Fund and its CEO Kirill Alexandrovich Dmitriev. Both entities are now subject to an asset freeze, per a March 1 notice from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation. The RDIF, Russia's sovereign wealth fund, and its CEO already are subject to U.S. sanctions.
The EU March 2 increased its sanctions against Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, removing seven Russian banks from SWIFT, the global interbank messaging service, and sanctioning two Russian state-owned media outlets.
The Department of Justice announced March 2 that it is setting up an interagency task force to enforce the deluge of sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Russia following its assault on Ukraine. Called Task Force KleptoCapture, it will be run by the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.
Keeping pace with the multinational sanctions being imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine has become a difficult but necessary task for lawyers and businesses, said sanctions and international trade lawyers at Crowell & Moring on a March 2 briefing hosted by the firm. The sanctions are already remarkably complex, totaling over 1,200 pages of new regulations, and more are expected. This marks the "fastest moving sanctions regime that we have seen," said Dj Wolff, a partner at the firm.
While China may help Russia evade some export controls imposed by the U.S., the EU and others, the fear of secondary sanctions and other trade restrictions will likely deter it from providing significant help to Russia, said Emily Kilcrease, an energy, economics and security expert at the Center for a New American Security. Chinese companies could find themselves on the Entity List for aiding Russia’s export-control evasion efforts, Kilcrease said, and could also face strict trade restrictions by Europe.