On Thursday (Apr 13), senior officials from the United States, Europe, and UK met with financial institutions to brief them on efforts by Russia to evade Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.
A senior US Treasury official told reporters that the officials met with firms from the United States, UK, and Europe, and the firms assured them that they were working hard to avert Russian efforts to evade sanctions and export controls.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund spring meetings.
Top US intelligence officials shared information on how Russia is using its GRU military intelligence agency and Federal Security Service (FSB) to try to evade sanctions and export controls.
The official noted that Washington and its allies are ratcheting up their enforcement of the massive raft of sanctions they have imposed on Russia and cracking down hard on any evasion efforts.
Moscow’s Shortage Of Materials To Produce Ammunition.
They also mentioned that Moscow is facing critical shortages of materials needed to produce ammunition.
To a person in that room, those financial firms demonstrated a willingness to do what they’ve been doing since the beginning of the war – which is to take seriously trying to prevent Russian evasion of those sanctions and export controls, not just in our jurisdictions, but also in third countries,” the senior official said of Thursday’s meeting.
Treasury said participants included Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo; EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness; and Britain’s Treasury Director General for International Finance Lindsey Whyte, along with CIA Deputy Director David Cohen and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Morgan Muir.
“The officials shared information about the most critical goods sought by the Russian military and emphasised that the Kremlin has directed its intelligence services to find ways around sanctions in order to replenish badly depleted supplies,” Treasury said.
Washington on Wednesday imposed sanctions on over 120 targets, including entities linked to Russian state-held energy company Rosatom and firms based in partner nations like Turkey in a sign of stepped-up enforcement.
The sanctions, imposed by the Treasury and State departments in concert with UK, hit entities and individuals in over 20 nations and jurisdictions, including a Russian private military company, a China-based firm and a Russian-owned bank in Hungary.
Washington is also working closely with authorities in Switzerland, a major global banking center, which has made it clear that it does not want to be seen as a haven for the evasion of sanctions on Russia, the official said.
Treasury’s top sanctions official, Undersecretary Brian Nelson, will visit Switzerland next week to discuss further moves to crack down on sanctions evasion, with additional stops in Italy, Austria and Germany, Reuters reported last week.