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Simultaneously, the Crocus City Hall mall terrorist attack on March 22 was exploited to justify mass crackdowns on migrant workers, culminating in regular raids, detentions and deportations. In some regions, including St. Petersburg, police raids on migrants occur almost weekly, the report says.
“The authorities are employing increasingly harsh methods to suppress dissent,” the report concludes.
1.2 Sanctions
The Biden administration unveiled its most extensive sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas business yet on January 10 in a bid to give Ukraine and the incoming Trump admiration more leverage in widely expected ceasefire talks that may start soon.
US exempts Kazakhstan’s main oil export route from new Russia sanctions package
The US Department of the Treasury introduced a new sanctions package against Russia on January 10 but granted key exemptions for oilfield services linked to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC
The main targets of the sanctions are the state-owned energy companies Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, which exported about 970,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil by sea in the first ten months of 2024, about 30% of the nation’s total flows on tankers, Bloomberg reports. Moscow-based Ingosstrakh Insurance Co. has also been included in the regime, a major maritime insurance company, which is pivotal in covering vessels moving Russian cargoes to India.
The sanction list has also been expanded to cover entities supporting production and export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by Russia, steelmaking, mining and oil industry of Russia, and senior executives of Rosatom state corporation, the official said.
The new oil sanctions are hoping to change that. They target every stage of Russia’s oil production and distribution chain, from producers and intermediaries to tankers and ports. A senior Biden official described the measures as “the most significant sanctions yet against the Russian energy sector, the largest source of revenue for the Kremlin's war machine.”
In addition, 183 shadow fleet tankers have been included in the new sanctions. There are currently 135 tankers sanctioned by the European Union, UK and US, with many of them blacklisted by some combination of the three.
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