Washington has unveiled 18 countries that face secondary sanctions for helping Russia circumvent Western sanctions.
The US Treasury has published a list of 18 countries through which the Russian Federation is trying to circumvent Western sanctions. It includes the states of the former USSR: Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Turkey, China, Brazil, India, Israel, Mexico, Serbia, UAE, South Africa, Nicaragua, Singapore, Taiwan are also listed there.
The US Treasury stated that all these countries are ‘transshipment points’ for Russia and Belarus.
However, many of these states deny supporting Russia. In particular, China defiantly refuses to help Moscow so that secondary sanctions are not introduced against it. However, some ‘private’ Chinese companies have already come under American restrictions for cooperation with the Russian Federation.
Turkey is suspected of involvement in the sale of stolen Ukrainian grain, as Russian ships with wheat were spotted in Turkish ports. The Russian side claimed that it was grain from the occupied Crimea. However, water problems and poor harvests previously prevented grain from being exported from the peninsula.
The European Union wants to strengthen sanctions measures. In this regard, there are plans to create a ‘ministry of sanctions’ – an analogue of the Office for Financial Assets Control (OFAC) under the US Treasury.
Brussels is also working to reduce opportunities to circumvent sanctions.
