WASHINGTON: The United States imposed sanctions on more than 400 entities and individuals on Friday for supporting Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, the State Department said. The entities include Chinese companies that US officials allege are helping Moscow skirt Western sanctions and build up its military.

Washington has repeatedly warned Beijing over its support for Russia’s defence industrial base and has already issued hundreds of sanctions aimed at restricting Moscow’s ability to exploit certain technologies for military purposes.

Friday’s sanctions include measures against companies in China involved in shipping machine tools and microelectronics to Russia, according to a State Department fact sheet outlining its sanctions against 190 targets.

The US Treasury Department said it was targeting transnational networks involved in procuring ammunition and other materiel for Russia, helping Russian oligarchs and others evade sanctions and laundering gold for a sanctioned company.

“Russia has turned its economy into a tool in service of the Kremlin’s military industrial complex,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo was quoted as saying in the statement.

“Companies, financial institutions, and governments around the world need to ensure they are not supporting Russia’s military-industrial supply chains.”

The Biden administration also added 123 entities to its export control list known as the Entity List that forces suppliers to obtain licences before shipping to targeted companies. Those added on Friday included 63 entities in Russia and 42 in China, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the US for the “additional strong sanctions” in a message o the X social media platform, saying they would further weaken Russia’s ability to “wage an aggressive war against Ukraine.”

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new sanctions.

After seizing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in 2022, triggering a host of new US economic sanctions on Moscow.

The war escalated on Aug 6 when Ukraine sent thousands of soldiers over the border into Russia’s western Kursk region. Kyiv has since announced a string of battlefield successes, but Russian forces continue to steadily inch forward in eastern Ukraine.

The US Treasury said it was imposing sanctions on several Russian financial technology, securities, real estate lending and other financial firms, but it stopped short of imposing sanctions against foreign banks for aiding transactions that support Russia’s war effort. The Treasury has warned banks since December that continued transactions in Russia’s war economy could cut them off from the dollar-based financial system.

Chinese targets

The State Department’s sanctions include moves aimed at stifling Russia’s energy sector and against companies in Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Central Asian economies that the US believes are helping Russia evade sanctions, the State Department said.

“Today’s actions hit Russia where it hurts - degrading its ability to generate revenue through its energy projects and disrupting its acquisition of materiel to supply its war machine,” said Aaron Forsberg, the State Department’s director for economic sanctions policy and implementation.

Targets include the import-export arm of China’s Dalian Machine Tool Group, which the State Department said had supplied $4 million of dual-use items to Russian companies.

The Treasury also targeted more than 20 Hong Kong and China-based firms it said were supplying Russia’s military industrial base.

Beijing says it has not provided weaponry to Russia for the war in Ukraine, but defends normal trade between China and Russia.

The latest US sanctions include measures against firms supplying components used in the Orlan drones that Russia is using in Ukraine.

Washington also sought with the sanctions to disrupt future energy projects in Russia and its shipment of liquefied natural gas. It targeted Russia’s $21 billion Arctic LNG 2 project, which has already been hit by Western sanctions that have curbed its access to ice-class tankers, and other companies involved in future energy projects in Russia, according to the fact sheet.

The sanctions also targeted companies involved in the shipments, like UAE-based White Fox Ship Management, which the U.S. says recently acquired four tankers to ship LNG.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2024