The US Department of the Treasury has placed new sanctions on three major Russian financial institutions — the Bank of Moscow, the Russian Agricultural Bank and VTB Bank OAO — as well as the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation.
Previously the Treasury has imposed sanctions against Russia’s largest oil producer, Rosneft, banking giant Vnesheconombank and gun-makers Kalashnikov Concern, among others. The addition of three major banks this week not only adds to that list, but piles on top of sanctions announced only hours earlier by European Union officials in Brussels.
Shortly before the US Treasury made its announcement on Tuesday, the EU confirmed that its 28-member body adopted new sanctions of its own against Russia, which “will limit access to EU capital markets for Russian State-owned financial institutions, impose an embargo on trade in arms, establish an export ban for dual use goods for military end users and curtail Russian access to sensitive technologies particularly in the field of the oil sector,” according to a statement released earlier Tuesday from the European body.
