The U.S. Treasury Department issued sanctions against nearly two dozen individuals and entities in multiple countries that it said were involved in assisting Russia’s military-industrial complex to evade previously placed sanctions.
Igor Vladimirovich Zimenkov, a Cyprus-based arms dealer, leads the network, and those whom he works with have “engaged in projects connected to Russian defense capabilities, including supplying a Russian company with high-technology devices after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” the department said in its announcement of the sanctions.
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The network has provided support for multiple state-owned Russian defense entities, including Rosoboronexport OAO (Rosoboronexport) and State Corporation Rostec (Rostec), which are key aspects of Russia’s military-industrial complex. Zimenkov and his son, Jonatan, have companies in Cyprus, Singapore, Belarus, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, and Israel.
“It has become increasingly difficult for Russia’s military-industrial complex to resupply the Kremlin’s war machine, forcing it to rely on nefarious suppliers, such as Iran and the DPRK,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “By trying to use proxies to circumvent U.S. sanctions, Russia demonstrates that our sanctions are having [an] impact. Our work will continue.”
The Treasury Department has repeatedly issued sanctions against individuals who have played a role in Russia’s war in Ukraine that’s set to reach its one-year milestone next month. Many of the sanctions have also targeted Kremlin leaders as well.
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“Russia’s desperate attempts to utilize proxies to circumvent U.S. sanctions demonstrate that sanctions have made it much harder and costlier for Russia’s military-industrial complex to re-supply Putin’s war machine,” said Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo. “Targeting proxies is one of many steps that Treasury and our coalition of partners have taken, and continue to take, to tighten sanctions enforcement against Russia’s defense sector, its benefactors, and its supporters.”
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced a slew of new sanctions against a Russian mercenary organization, the Wagner Group, whose soldiers, they said, have engaged in a pattern of “serious criminal activity” in both Ukraine and various African nations.
