EU adds 160 Russian tycoons and senators to its (official) sanctions blacklist

The 27 members of the European Union (EU) decided to expand their sanctions against Russia and Belarus on Wednesday by excluding three Belarusian banks from the international financial platform Swift and adding 14 Russian tycoons and 146 senators to their blacklist.

The EU also decided to ban the export to Russia of parts and technologies destined for the maritime sector and include cryptocurrencies in the sanctions, the European Commission (EC) 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, the steel industry or telecommunications.

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

The European blacklist, which was established since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, now includes a total of 862 people and 53 entities.

The Europeans also prohibit any transaction related to assets of the Belarusian central bank, which helps to isolate the institution by reducing its room for manoeuvre. They also drastically restrict the access of Belarusians to European financial markets for amounts greater than 100,000 euros.

The measures were approved by the representatives of the member countries meeting in Brussels and will enter into force once they have been published in the Official Journal of the EU.

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

On the other hand, the EU decided to extend the scope of sanctions to cryptocurrencies.

The G7 countries and the EU announced last week that they intended to prevent Russia from finding ways to bypass Western sanctions through the use of cryptocurrencies.