Page 41 - RusRPTAug22

2.14 Politics - misc
Only six EU countries have frozen significant amounts of Russian assets.
Germany, France, Ireland, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg have frozen Russian assets totaling €13.9B. This is almost the entire amount of frozen Russian assets in the EU, according to a statement from the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders. It is noted that the rest of the EU countries have frozen Russian Federation assets in insignificant amounts or completely ignored this requirement. According to the European Commissioner, the problem lies in the insufficient exchange of information between countries. The EU is developing new rules that will simplify not only the freezing but also the seizure of assets. A potential key element of these rules is the introduction of criminal penalties for non-compliance with sanctions. The European Parliament has already supported this idea, but the member state governments must approve it in each individual EU country. Reinders assumes that the new rules will be adopted in October.
“If we don’t get the gas turbine, then we won’t get any more gas, and then we won’t be able to provide any support for Ukraine at all, because then we’ll be busy with popular uprisings,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during a TV interview.
The US Senate voted to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism on July 29. The US Senate approved a resolution calling on the State Department to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism for its actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, reported the NYT. "The armed forces of the Russian Federation committed numerous executions of innocent civilians and tried to cover up their atrocities with mass burials throughout Ukraine," the resolution text reads. A similar resolution has been submitted to the House of Representatives, the lower house of the US Congress. However, the representatives and senators cannot make the decision to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism on their own, it must be made by the State Department. There are currently four countries on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism: Syria, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.
EU extends sanctions against Russia until Jan. 31, 2023. The sanctions were imposed in 2014 and expanded after Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. The EU called on Russia to immediately stop attacks on the civilian population and unconditionally withdraw all its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.
UK expands list of sanctioned individuals. The targeted individuals include Russian-installed proxies in occupied parts of Ukraine's east, Russian Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuychenko, Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Sviridenko,
41 RUSSIA Country Report October 2020 www.intellinews.com