The United States on Friday put sanctions on Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, three family members of President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson and lawmakers in the latest action on Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Russia has dealt with a slew of gauges since starting its Feb 24 invasion, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. Those whacked by Friday’s sanctions include 10 people on the board of VTB Bank, the second-largest lender in Russia, and 12 members of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, the U.S. Treasury Department announced in a statement.
“Treasury proceeds to hold Russian officials to account for stimulating Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced. Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was targeted on March 3. Friday’s regulations broaden to his wife and two adult children.
They direct “luxurious lifestyles that are incongruous with Peskov’s civil servant salary,” the Treasury said in a news release. The Kremlin did not instantly reply to a Reuters request for comment.
Four Novikombank board members, including the chair Elena Georgieva, and ABR Management and four of its board members, comprising Bank Rossiya chair Dmitri Lebedev and Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Knyaginin, were also considered with sanctions, the State Department announced.
In mid-February, Russia’s lower house of parliament voted to ask Putin to identify two Russian-backed breakaway areas in eastern Ukraine as an independent.
Eleven members and speaker Vyacheslav Volodin were enhanced to the sanctions list on Friday. “Today’s designations further hold to account those players who were literally responsible for Russia’s unlawful and illegal recognition … and stimulating the sham pretext used by Putin to justify the … unprovoked war against Ukraine,” the Treasury announced.
Justifying the action at the time, Volodin asserted: “Kyiv is not identifying the Minsk agreements. Our citizens and compatriots who live in Donbass want our support and help.” The Minsk pacts are a pair of treaties signed in 2014 and 2015 in the hope of ending turmoil between pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and the Kyiv administration.
