HIROSHIMA – At their summit in Japan, G7 members will announce new sanctions against Russia and take action against those who help circumvent them, which is expected to reduce Moscow’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine.
At a press briefing, an unnamed Biden administration official said that at the Hiroshima summit starting Friday, the G-7 will announce hundreds of new sanctions and checks on the ‘export.
The United States alone will blacklist about 70 organizations from Russia and third countries associated with the Russian defense industry, the official said.
In addition, more than 300 natural and legal persons, aircraft and ships will fall under US sanctions. Other G7 countries will also announce their measures this week.
According to the official, these measures should further reduce Russia’s ability to obtain equipment and war materials, close loopholes to circumvent sanctions and reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. .
The G7 will also take additional steps to limit Russia’s access to the international financial system and pledge not to unfreeze Russia’s sovereign assets.
“In short, we are increasing economic pressure on Russia,” the official said.
The official added that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would interact with G7 leaders at the summit “in one form or another.”
The G7 will not announce a complete ban on exports to Russia, national security adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed to American media aboard the presidential plane.
“The main focus of the summit will be to enforce sanctions and to fight evasion,” Sullivan said.
According to the Atlantic Council Geoeconomics Center, the mostly European G7 exports goods to Russia worth $4.7 billion a month, or about 43% of pre-invasion volumes in Ukraine.
The US Treasury Department has named four ways for sanctioned Russians to escape: using close relatives or associates, using real estate to store assets, using complex structures to conceal ownership and the transfer of assets to countries that have not imposed sanctions against Russia.
More than 4,800 Russian natural and legal persons have already been subject to multilateral sanctions, including President Vladimir Putin, his ex-wife, the head of Wagner PMC, the Kremlin spokesman and his family members, etc. .
Seth Bridge, coordinator of the Treasury Department’s task force on Russian elites, intermediaries and oligarchs, said the G7 had blocked or frozen sanctioned Russian assets totaling more than $58 billion since the start of the war.
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