US announces sweeping new sanctions against Russia a year after the start of the war

WASHINGTON. On Friday, the US announced a new round of sanctions on Russian companies, banks, manufacturers and individuals, targeting organizations that previously helped Russia evade sanctions in its year-long war against Ukraine.

According to the agency, the Russian metal and mining sector is among those subject to one of the “most severe U.S. Treasury Department sanctions to date.”

This action, taken in coordination with G7 allies, aims to punish 250 individuals and firms, impose financial blocs on arms-related banks, arms dealers and tech companies, and target alleged sanctions evaders in countries from United Arab Emirates to Switzerland.

“Our sanctions have had both short-term and long-term effects, as acutely manifest in Russia’s struggle to replenish its weapons and its isolated economy,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a written statement. “Our actions today with our G7 partners show that we will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

This week, Yellen is attending the G-20 finance ministers’ meetings in Bangalore, India. On Friday morning, she told senior Russian officials who attended the meetings that “their continued work for the Kremlin makes them complicit in Putin’s atrocities.”

“They are responsible for the lives and livelihoods taken in Ukraine and the damage caused around the world,” she said.

The sanctions came after the White House announced early Friday that the Pentagon would provide $2 billion for additional munitions and various small, high-tech drones to fight Russia.

The State and Trade Departments and the Office of the US Trade Representative will also release plans on Friday to increase pressure on Russia. The moves raise tariffs on Russian products and add nearly 90 companies from Russia and third countries, including China, to the list of identified sanctions evaders.

The sanctions package passed on Friday includes a dozen financial institutions, including Russia’s largest non-state public bank, importers of microelectronics and manufacturers of carbon fiber, a key material for defense systems.

The package lists the names of more than 30 individuals and firms allegedly linked to Russia’s efforts to evade sanctions. Among them: the Swiss-Italian businessman Walter Moretti and his enterprises; Nurmurad Kurbanov, a Russian-Turkmen arms dealer who allegedly represented Russian and Belarusian defense firms abroad; and Russian businessman Alexander Evgenyevich Udodov, former son-in-law of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

More than 30 countries, representing more than half of the global economy, have already imposed unprecedented sanctions on the Russian economy, making it the most sanctioned country in the world.

They imposed price caps on Russian oil and diesel fuel, froze the funds of the Russian Central Bank and restricted access to SWIFT, the dominant system of global financial transactions.

The West has directly sanctioned some 2,500 Russian firms, government officials, oligarchs and their families. The sanctions deny them access to their US bank accounts and financial markets, prevent them from doing business with Americans, traveling to the US, and more.

A year later, Western export controls and financial sanctions appear to be slowly eroding Russia’s industrial potential, even as its oil and other energy exports last year allowed it to continue to fund a catastrophic war.

At the G-20 meetings on Friday, the head of the British Treasury, Jeremy Hunt, said: “We don’t think the job is by any means not done.”

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Marie said at a G-20 press conference that “our sanctions are strong, they are effective, they hit and cut all of Russia’s revenues.”

“They are disorganizing Russian industry, undermining the military effort,” he said. “Sanctions are effective and will be even more effective in the long run.”