Armored vehicles of pro-Russian troops drive along a road in the wake of the Ukraine-Russia conflict near Dokuchaievsk in Donetsk region, Ukraine, March 25, 2022.
Alexander Ermochenko | Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against a global network of individuals and shell companies it says are helping the Russian military circumvent multilateral controls on exports of advanced technology to Moscow as the Kremlin wages war on Ukraine .
At the heart of the network is Serniya Engineering, a Moscow-based company that the Biden administration says operates under the direction of Russian intelligence agencies.
From there the sprawling group of companies extends outward and includes defense procurement firms, brokers and front companies based in the UK, Spain, Finland, Singapore, Malta and France.
The US introduced export controls at the start of the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February. The restrictions work in tandem with nearly identical export bans enforced by the European Union, Japan, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and South Korea.
The Treasury Ministry also announced new sanctions on Thursday against four tech companies that supply the Russian military with microelectronics, navigation equipment and satellite imagery software.
One of them, Mikron, is also Russia’s largest chipmaker. The company is responsible for the debit card chips in Russia’s Mir domestic payments system, which was developed in response to previous Western sanctions.
The US also identified three other sectors of Russia’s economy — aerospace, marine and electronics — as potential targets for sanctions because they are strategically important to the country’s defense industry.
Until now, only financial services, technology and defense industries have been considered strategically important to the Kremlin’s war effort.
The Ministry of Finance also appointed a Russian government agency responsible for the development and deployment of the notorious Triton cyberattack malware, along with several senior officials.
The designation came amid heightened fears in the White House and US intelligence agencies that Russia could launch a cyberattack on some of America’s critical infrastructure.
A few weeks ago, US officials took the extraordinary step of holding detailed, classified briefings for several hundred infrastructure companies they believe are at greatest risk of being targeted by Russian cyberwarfare.
A cyberattack on a non-military target is widely seen as the easiest and most direct route Russian President Vladimir Putin took against the Biden administration for its leadership in assembling the global alliance of countries that have stymied Russia’s economy with sanctions and arms supplies. could avenge and help Ukraine.
The Treasury Department’s website has a full list of the new sanctions, affecting 21 companies and 13 individuals.
Unlike previous rounds of sanctions aimed at Russia’s economy and defense sector in response to the war in Ukraine, the package announced on Thursday does not name other countries that will impose the same designations.
But the Treasury said it was taking the action “in close coordination with our partners who are similarly committed to ensuring that the Russian Federation does not use its territories for its destructive purposes.”
Overall, the new sanctions reflect Washington’s promise that it would not become complacent after the first burst of coordinated sanctions imposed at the start of the Russian invasion in late February.
White House officials say they will continue to look for ways to weaken Russia’s military infrastructure as long as the Kremlin continues its botched and brutal invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia not only continues to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty with its unprovoked aggression, but has also escalated its attacks on civilians and population centers,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement announcing the new sanctions on Thursday.
In response, she said, “We will continue to attack Putin’s war machine with sanctions from all sides until this pointless war of elections is over.”
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