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Compliance Corner: US Widens Scope Of Russian Sanctions

Editorial Staff

14 March 2022

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has issued a new round of sanctions targeting Russian and Kremlin elites, oligarchs, and Russia’s political and national security leaders.

The actions are taken as part of measures by the US and other governments to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The actions, announced last Friday, target elites and business executives who are associates and facilitators of the Russian regime, including three immediate family members of President Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitriy Sergeevich Peskov; Russian tycoon and Kremlin insider Viktor Vekselberg; and the management board of the sanctioned VTB Bank. 

The US has also designated 12 members of the Russian State Duma, including Vyacheslav Victorovich Volodin, who is also a permanent member of Russia’s Security Council, the OFAC said in a statement. 

“Treasury continues to hold Russian officials to account for enabling Putin’s unjustified and unprovoked war,” Secretary of the Treasury Janet L Yellen said. “Today’s actions also further isolate the severely damaged Russian economy by prohibiting trade in products that are key to the economic and financial interests of all Russian elites.”

On March 3, the US State Department designated Dmitriy Sergeevich Peskov , identified as the lead propagandist and spokesperson of the Russian Federation. Peskov was designated for being or having been an official of the government of the Russian Federation. Australia, Canada, and the European Union have also sanctioned Peskov.

OFAC is now designating three of Peskov’s family members, all of whom “live luxurious lifestyles that are incongruous with Peskov’s civil servant salary and are likely built on the ill-gotten wealth of Peskov’s connections to Putin.”

Peskov’s wife, Tatiana Aleksandrovna Navka , has a property empire worth more than $10 million. Peskov’s two adult children, Nikolay Peskov and Elizaveta Dmitriyevna Peskova, are also designated.

Viktor Feliksovich Vekselberg is a prominent Russian businessman with an estimated net worth exceeding $6 billion. Among its measures, OFAC identified two of Vekselberg’s luxury assets as blocked property: an aircraft with tail number P4-MIS and a yacht titled Tango. 

The Treasury designated VTB Bank, Russia’s second largest, on February 24. On Friday, OFAC designated the 10 individuals comprising VTB Bank’s management board: