Last year, on October 27, 2017, the U.S. State Department released a targeted list of Russian defense and intelligence companies that were placed under a new U.S. sanctions law, restricting business transactions with them and further ratcheting up pressure against Moscow. The new list came after weeks of mounting criticism by members of Congress who accused the White House of missing an October 1 deadline. The sanctions officially went into effect on January 29 of this year.
The law was reluctantly signed by President Donald Trump in August 2017, despite widespread support by Congress. The law seeks to punish Russia for what the U.S. intelligence community concluded was its meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, among other things.
Among the companies listed in the new sanctions: Rosoboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms exporter; Almaz-Antey, a major missile manufacturer; United Shipbuilding Corp., Russia’s biggest shipbuilding firm; Sukhoi and Tupolev airplane manufacturers; Rostec, a technology holding company; and the FSB (Federal Security Service) and GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), Russia’s main security agencies.
The sanctions list had impacted Russian arms contracts that U.S. allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia had signed for Russian weapons systems. The State Department said that the U.S. intended to work with its allies and partners to help them avoid engaging in potentially sanctionable activity while strengthening military capabilities used for cooperative defense efforts.
The sanctions allow for asset seizures of individuals and companies that “knowingly engage in a significant transaction” with people or firms on the list.
Moscow had remained mostly quiet in its reaction to the sanctions list, which had not come as a surprise. Russian Federation Council member Viktor Bondarev said that sanctions would damage political cooperation between Russia and the U.S. in Syria.
A State Department official explained that the delay in issuing the sanctions list was not caused by reluctance to enforce the law. He underscored that the Trump administration shared Congress’s goal of responding “to Russia’s malign behavior with respect to the crisis in eastern Ukraine, cyberintrusions and attacks, and human rights abuses.”
Source: “Russian defense, intelligence companies targeted by new U.S. sanctions list,” by Mike Eckel (RFE/RL), The Ukrainian Weekly, November 5, 2017.