The United States has imposed sanctions on three legal entities accused of seeking to facilitate arms sales between North Korea and Russiadespite Washington’s restrictions on support to Moscow, the US Treasury announced.

The three entities are linked to a Slovak national, Asot Mkrticev, who has been under US State Department sanctions since March for allowing arms sales between Pyongyang and Moscow, the Treasury Department said Wednesday, a year and a half after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Ministry of Finance stated that “imposed sanctions on three entities linked to a sanctions circumvention networkattempting to support arms contracts between Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

“This action is part of the United States’ ongoing strategy to identify, expose, and disrupt third-country actors seeking to support Russia’s cold war against Ukraine,” he added.

The companies targeted by the sanctions are: Versor, Verus and Defense Engineering.

Mkrtichev is chairman of Versor, founder and owner of Verus and director of Defense Engineering, according to the US Treasury Department.

He was sanctioned in March by the US for “working” from late 2022 to early 2023 jointly “with North Korean officials in order to secure more than two dozen types of weapons and ammunition for Russia in exchange for a range of products, including raw materials and goods, for North Korea,” Washington said at the time.

Britain had also announced on August 8 sanctions against 25 people, including Asot Mkrtichev, “for his involvement in an attempted arms supply agreement between North Korea and Russia.”

“Along with our allies and partners, we remain determined to denounce and disrupt the arms trade that is the basis of Putin’s cold war in Ukraine,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Brian Nielson said in a statement.

Under the sanctions, all assets and interests of the three companies subject to US jurisdiction will be blocked.