The Trump administration hit 30 Russian and Ukrainian entities with sanctions Friday in an effort to pressure the Kremlin over its role in the continued violence on Ukraine’s eastern border as well as its occupation of Crimea.
Russia has maintained financial and military support to separatists in eastern Ukraine, fueling a proxy war that broke out in 2014 and has resulted in more than 10,000 deaths. Friday’s sanctions target 11 Ukrainian separatists, seven entities that support the separatists’ illicit coal trade, and 12 other entities in connection with Russian activities in Crimea and elsewhere.
“The U.S. government is committed to maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine and to targeting those who attempt to undermine the Minsk agreements,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, referring to the 2015 ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France. Friday’s designations include ministers of foreign affairs, finance, justice, and other departments in the separatist-run Donetsk People’s Republic, as well as some department leaders in the Luhansk People’s Republic.
Treasury targeted Russia’s deputy minister of energy Andrey Cherezov and other officials over their support for energy projects in Russian-occupied Crimea. Those designations underscore “the U.S. government’s opposition to Russia’s occupation of Crimea and firm refusal to recognize its attempted annexation of the peninsula,” the department said.
Friday’s crop of designations comes as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine Kurt Volker meets with his Russian counterpart in Dubai.
Trump in December authorized the supply of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine in a major break from the Obama administration, which provided non-lethal aid but, wary of escalating the conflict, steered clear of weapons. Volker said this month that the provision of non-lethal aid such as Javelin anti-tank missiles would act as a deterrent in the conflict.
The designations also come days before a congressionally mandated deadline for a report mapping out Putin’s elite inner circle that has Russian oligarchs worried. Though the report will not itself represent immediate sanctions designations, Bloomberg reported that it is “expected to amount to a blacklist of Russia’s elite.” Parts of the report could remain classified, per Bloomberg.
