EU extends list of restrictions for Russian tycoons and senators

The 27 member countries of the European Union decided to extend their sanctions against Russia and Belarus this Wednesday (9), with the withdrawal of three Belarusian banks from the international financial platform Swift, in addition to adding 14 Russian tycoons and 146 senators to their list of restrictions.

The EU also decided to ban the export of parts and technologies destined for the maritime sector to Russia and to include cryptocurrencies in the sanctions, the European Commission said on Twitter.

The sanctioned millionaires and businessmen, as well as members of their families, work in key sectors of the Russian economy such as agriculture, steel and telecommunications.

Senators are part of the Council of the Russian Federation, the upper house of Parliament.

The European restrictions list, which has been established since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, now includes a total of 862 people and 53 entities.

The Europeans also ban any transactions related to assets of the Central Bank of Belarus, which helps to isolate the institution by reducing its room for manoeuvre. They also drastically restrict Belarusians’ access to European financial markets to amounts above 100,000 euros.

The measures were approved by the representatives of the member countries meeting in Brussels. They will enter into force as soon as they are published in the EU Official Gazette.

The objective is that Russia will not be able to circumvent the sanctions already imposed on its financial and banking sector. The EU accuses Belarus of “complicity” in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Still, the EU decided to extend the scope of sanctions to cryptocurrencies.

Last week, the G7 countries and the EU had already announced that they intended to prevent Russia from finding ways to circumvent Western sanctions through the use of cryptocurrencies.