US Preparing New Russia Sanctions, Export Controls

The U.S. is preparing to roll out a “substantial package” of new sanctions and export controls against Russia for its war in Ukraine, including by adding about 70 new entities to the Commerce Department’s Entity List and introducing more than 300 new financial sanctions against people, entities, vessels and aircraft, a senior administration official said. The measures, which will be coordinated alongside allies as part of the Group of 7 summit in Japan May 19-21, are aimed at closing “loopholes” used by Russia to evade sanctions and “extensively restricting categories of goods key to the battlefield,” the official said during a May 18 call with reporters.

The financial sanctions will also “go after circumvention” and will target “financial facilitators, as well as future energy and extractive capabilities of Russia and other actors helping to support the war.” The U.S. will impose sanctions “across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia,” the official said, and will expand its sanctions authorities to more sectors of the Russian economy “key to its military-industrial complex and impose new bans to prevent Russia from benefiting from our services.”

Some of those measures will be imposed alongside G-7 allies, the official said, although the person declined to “get into the specifics of what partners are doing.” But the official said the U.S. is hoping to “take significant steps to align our actions even more closely” with sanctions imposed by the European Union and the U.K. “to ensure that, as the G-7, we remain as coordinated as possible.”