Page 9 - RusRPTApr21

2.0 Politics
2.1 US sanctions Russian officials over Navalny, bans
defence technology exports
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has updated its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List with a number of Russian officials and state defence companies on March 2.
As reported by bne IntelliNews, the administration of the US President Joe Biden was expected to introduce new sanctions against Russia for the jailing of dissident Alexei Navalny this week.
The updated sanction list includes the head of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov; first deputy head of the presidential administration Sergei Kirienko; the general prosecutor Igor Krasnov; two deputy defence ministers, Pavel Popov and Alexei Krivoruchko; as well as the head of the domestic policy of the presidential administration, Andrei Yarin.
The US sanctions will also be introduced against three state defence research institutes (27th and 33rd research centres of the Defence Ministry, the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Technology). Exports of defence technologies will be banned for 14 institutions (nine Russian, three German and one Swiss).
The sanctions are being expanded under the 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons Act, already imposed in response to the chemical attack on the former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK in 2018. Reportedly, the US was expected co-ordinate its package of Navalny sanctions with the EU.
"The tone and substance of our conversation with Russia, and our conversations about Russia, will be very different from what you saw in the previous administration,” one unnamed senior official said, as cited by the Guardian.
As followed by bne IntelliNews, the European Union remains divided over what to do with Russia over Navalny, and the majority of states are sitting on the fence; harsh sanctions were not expected to emerge from the meeting by insiders.
While the sanctions were light and largely symbolic, the Kremlin is expected to respond after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov laid out new rules of the game in February, saying Russia would no longer tolerate any sanctions or punishments of any kind.
“The principle of reciprocity in diplomacy is still there and there will be a response,” Lavrov said at a press conference on March 2.
This round of sanctions was specifically provoked by the jailing of Navalny; however, more sanctions are expected as the US deals with other issues like the alleged SolarWinds hack by Russia and the construction of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
9 RUSSIA Country Report April 2021 www.intellinews.com