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# 									Continuing to Hold Russia to Account for its War against Ukraine							

Press Statement

Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State

December 15, 2022

The United States continues to impose costs on Russia for its war of aggression against Ukraine.  Russia’s attacks have devastated Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and caused extraordinary death and destruction.  Today, we are announcing additional sanctions measures on the Russian Federation and its enablers.  Pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14024, the Departments of State and the Treasury are taking actions against major actors in Russia’s financial sector, senior government officials connected to mobilization efforts, and proxy authorities installed in Ukraine.

Specifically, the Department of State is imposing sanctions on Vladimir Potanin, one of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs and a close associate of President Putin, as well as three members of his immediate family and his company, Interros.  We are also identifying his yacht, Nirvana, as blocked property.  The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating Public Joint Stock Company Rosbank, a bank acquired by Potanin earlier this year, for operating or having operated in the financial services sector of the Russian Federation economy.  Similar actions have been taken by the United Kingdom and Canada.

The Department of State is also designating officials helping to advance Russia’s invasion and control of Ukrainian territory, including 29 Russian heads of regions and governors, two of their family members, and an entity owned by one of the family members.  These governors oversee and enforce the conscription of citizens in response to Russia’s recent mobilization order.  We also are designating six proxy authorities and an entity operating on behalf of the Kremlin in Ukraine.  This includes the former “Minister of Internal Affairs” of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, who led a battalion that fought in Mariupol and oversees the operations of filtration camps that facilitate the forced relocation of Ukraine’s citizens to Russia.

The State Department is further holding accountable the corporate leadership of Russian state-owned companies by designating five individuals serving on the Board of Directors of Russian Railways, including two Deputy Prime Ministers of Russia, Andrey Removich Belousov and Dmitriy Nikolaevich Chernyshenko.

In coordination with these designations, OFAC is also designating 17 subsidiaries of VTB Bank, which was designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 on February 24, 2022.

Our actions today are a clear message that the United States will not hesitate to continue to use the tools at our disposal to promote an end to, and accountability for, President Putin’s unconscionable war.

For more information on today’s action, please see the Department of State’s fact sheet and the Department of the Treasury’s press release.

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Bureau of European and Eurasian AffairsDivision for Counter Threat Finance and SanctionsOffice of the SpokespersonRussiaSanctionsThe Secretary of StateUkraine

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