Dec. 22 (UPI) — President Joe Biden will sign an executive order Friday expanding sanctions against financial facilitators of Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.
The expanded sanctions provide the United States with “additional tools to root out Russia’s procurement networks” as Russia “creates cutouts” to circumvent existing sanctions through “booth witting and unwitting financial intermediaries,” the White House said.
“We are sending an unmistakable message: anyone supporting Russia’s unlawful war effort is at risk of losing access to the U.S. financial system,” national security advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
These expanded sanctions add to the weight of those already in place together with export control actions targeting Russia and its military aggression against Ukraine, allowing the United States to target financial institutions that have “conducted or facilitated any significant transaction for or on behalf of companies or individuals” already sanctioned by the United States for supporting Russia’s military.
It also permits sanctions on financial institutions working with Russia’s military industrial base “including the sale, supply or transfer to Russia of certain critical items” that will be listed by the Treasury Department.
“A financial institution sanctioned under one of these criteria will face either full blocking sanctions or the loss of, or strict conditions on, their U.S. correspondent accounts,” the White House said.
The White House said the expanded sanctions were also meant to move in line with action taken by the G7 earlier this month, including plans to impose restrictions on non-industrial Russian diamonds in a further effort to cut funding for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The executive order amends existing sanctions to provide the U.S. authority to ban import of “certain products mined, extracted, produced, or manufactured wholly or in part in Russia,” even if they are later transformed in a third country.
The G7 pledge proposed restricting imports of diamonds, mined processed or produced in Russia beginning on Jan. 1, 2024, followed by additional restrictions on imports of Russian diamonds processed in third countries by March 1 as they work to create a system to throughly trace the diamonds and implement a broader ban by Sept. 1.
Lastly, Friday’s order provided the U.S. the authority to ban seafood harvested in Russian waters or by Russian vessels even if they are later handled by another country, with the Treasury set to specify exactly which types will be barred.
The latest expansion comes after the Treasury Department tightened its price cap on Russian oil, which targets shipping transporting it. Those actions sanctioned a ship manager owned by the Russian government and a handful of “obscure oil traders” carrying Russian oil above the $60 per barrel cap.
