The Russian grantor of a blocked U.S.-based trust company is suing the Office of Foreign Assets Control, saying OFAC falsely accused the trust of being used to help a Russian oligarch evade sanctions. Kuncha Kerimova, the grantor, said the trust was designed to share her wealth with her grandchildren and other descendants, not to aid designated Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.
The U.K. is open to strengthening enforcement against both British and third-country companies that illegally divert goods to Russia, said Douglas Alexander, the U.K.’s minister for trade policy and economic security.
The U.K. on July 7 added two people and one entity to its chemical weapons sanctions list. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation sanctioned Aleksey Rtishchev and Andrei Marchenko, the head and deputy head of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Troops of the Russian Ministry of Defense, respectively. The listed entity is the Joint Stock Co. Federal Scientific and Production Centre Scientific Research Institute of Applied Chemistry, which supplies riot control agent grenades to the Russian military.
A bill that could impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia and its supporters if Moscow refuses to negotiate a peace agreement with Ukraine might head to the Senate floor before the August congressional recess, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said July 9.
The U.K. fined a British exporter $1,160,725.67 pounds (about $1.57 million) for violating sanctions against Russia, the country’s Revenue and Customs agency announced July 8. The penalty represented the largest settlement ever issued by the U.K.’s customs agency for a Russia-related sanctions breach. The exporter “made goods available to Russia in breach of” the sanctions, the U.K. said, but it provided no further details.
Reps. Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., introduced a bill July 7 that would give the Treasury Department expanded authority to prohibit U.S. bank access for foreign financial institutions that serve Russia’s energy sector or sanctioned Russian entities.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control this week sanctioned a North Korea-based hacker along with a Russian national and several related companies for helping to employ North Korean information technology workers abroad.
The U.K.’s National Crime Agency published an alert last week to make companies aware of sanctions evasion by Russian shadow fleet vessels, including red flags they should be monitoring and steps they can take to alert U.K. authorities.
Three Senate Democrats urged the Trump administration July 3 to restart regular updates of sanctions and export controls against Chinese and other entities helping Russia’s war machine.
The U.S. and its allies should consider using additional sanctions to force Iran back to the negotiating table over its nuclear weapons program, although more sanctions also risk pushing Iran to cooperate even more closely with China, Russia and North Korea, a former Pentagon official said last week.