On Monday, the US Department of State announced new sanctions against 11 high-ranking Russian military and military-industrial figures, including Russian National Guard chief Viktor Zolotov, Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation head Dmitry Shugayev, Rosoboronexport CEO Alexander Mikheyev, and eight Russian Deputy Defense Ministers.
“The world has watched in horror as Russia has perpetrated a premeditated, unprovoked, and unjustified attack on Ukraine. Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine. […]Today, the Department of State is continuing to impose severe costs on Russian defense leaders,” the Department of State said in its statement.
“The following 11 individuals are being designated pursuant to E.O. 14024 Section 1(a)(i), as persons who operate or have operated in the defense and related materiel sector of the Russian Federation economy,” the statement follows.
Russian Deputy Defense Ministers Alexey Krivoruchko, Timur Ivanov, Yunus-Bek Evkurov, Dmitry Bulgakov, Yury Sadovenko, Nikolay Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov, and Gennady Zhidko are among those targeted.
According to the statement, being added to the sanctions list means that all assets in the United States are frozen, and US persons and companies are prohibited from doing business with people on the list.
In a televised address on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that in response to a request from the heads of the Donbass republics, he had decided to launch a special military operation to protect people “who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.” The Russian president stated emphatically that Moscow had no intention of invading Ukrainian territory.
When asked to describe the current situation, the Russian Defense Ministry stated that Russian troops are limited to surgically destroying and incapacitating Ukrainian military facilities rather than attacking Ukrainian cities.
Following that, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and a number of other countries placed sanctions on Russian citizens and companies.
