The Treasury Department announced sweeping new enforcement measures Wednesday to tighten the screws on Russia, including expanding the use of sanctions to inflict pain on outside entities that continue to do business with Moscow, known as “secondary sanctions.”
The push comes as the U.S. and Western allies have struggled to curtail Russia’s war revenue in the more than two years since the start of its war in Ukraine, despite implementing a series of sanctions, bans, and other restrictions aimed at restricting its profits, primarily from its oil and gas exports.
The new effort includes sanctions on than 300 entities, officials said. The administration will expand its broader designation of secondary sanctions to apply to 4,500 entities and third countries that supply Russia with technology or supplies restricted by the U.S.—up from the 1,200 entities that were formerly subject to this enforcement.
The designations will apply to any entity or country that continues to do business with Russia or supply the country with products or services that allow it to either sustain the war or evade U.S. sanctions, including any entities still helping Russia build out its energy sector.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, senior Biden administration officials said the secondary sanctions will apply to “every target” that the U.S. has already sanctioned, including the more then 100 entities sanctioned for their role in helping develop Russia’s energy sector and bring online three planned liquefied natural gas terminals in the Arctic Ocean.
The new action sanctions three entities involved in either construction of LNG-related projects or manufacturing specialized equipment for LNG transportation, officials said, well as the identification of seven under-construction LNG vessels.
“Russia’s war economy is deeply isolated from the international financial system, leading the Kremlin’s military desperate for access to the outside world,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Wednesday.
“Today’s actions strike at their remaining avenues for international materials and equipment, including their reliance on critical supplies from third countries,” she said.
The secondary sanctions are a way of allowing the U.S. to inflict pain, or threaten to inflict pain, on other counties in a bid to help deter their continued business with Russia. It will allow the U.S. to go after certain countries such as China that have fostered closer business ties with Russia since the start of its war in Ukraine.
Russian energy profits have continued to pad President Vladimir Putin’s war coffers.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Between January and May, Russia’s oil and gas revenues surged by more than 73% compared to the same period last year, according to data from Russia’s Finance Ministry, illustrating the steady growth Moscow has continued to see in this sector despite efforts from the U.S. and its allies to restrict its energy profits.