UPDATE 2: US sanctions Russian debt, IT firms, expels diplomats

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MOSCOW, Apr 15 (PRIME) – Washington has imposed new sanctions on Russia, targeting the country’s primary state debt, six Russian technology companies, and 32 entities and individuals, and expelled 10 personnel from the diplomatic mission in Washington in response to the SolarWinds cyberattack and election interference, the White House said on Thursday.

“Today the Biden administration is taking actions to impose costs on Russia for actions by its government and intelligence services against U.S. sovereignty and interests,” the White House said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury prohibited U.S. banks from participating in the primary market for ruble and non-ruble bonds of the Russian central bank, the National Wealth Fund, and the Finance Ministry issued after June 14, 2021, ands banks are also prohibited from lending bonds to the authorities.

The Treasury also designated six Russian technology companies that “provide support to the Russian Intelligence Services’ cyber program, ranging from providing expertise to developing tools and infrastructure to facilitating malicious cyber activities.”

The companies are ERA Technolopolis, Pasit, the Federal State Autonomous Scientific Establishment Scientific Research Institute Specialized Security Computing Devices and Automation, Neobit, Advanced System Technology, and Pozitiv Teknolodzhiz, or Positive Technologies.

Treasury also sanctioned 32 entities and individuals carrying out Russian government-directed attempts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election, and other acts of disinformation and interference.

The Treasury also sanctioned five individuals and three companies in connection to alleged occupation of Crimea and human rights violation in the region, including Leonid Ryzhenkin and companies Lenpromtransproyekt and the Berkakit-Tommot-Yakutsk Railway Line’s Construction Directorate that participated in construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait.

Washington Post reported quoting sources that the E.U. and NATO may issue a statement in support of the new sanctions, but they have no plans to slap their own sanctions.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin condemned and considered any sanctions illegal when media reported that the U.S. plans to slap sanctions on operations with Russian state debt.

“Of course, we would not like our relations to work under the famous Lenin’s formula ‘One step forward, two steps back’,” he told reporters.

When asked about the impact that the sanctions on a meeting between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden, Peskov said, “These possible sanctions will in no way help this meeting to happen. Whether they will undermine the meeting or not is for the presidents to decide. The meeting was the proposal of the U.S. president, and now it will be for the Russian president to decide.”

Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the parliament’s upper chamber Federation Council, told PRIME that Russia is not afraid of the U.S. sanctions even though they may hurt the economy.

“It may have an impact on our economy, but we don’t fear anything, we are actually fed up with it,” Dzhabarov said, adding that sanctions against state debt will also seriously hurt the U.S. economy.

“The U.S. investors will bear serious losses, they invest in the debt. That is why I think that this measure will not be implemented.”

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