US Sanctions 1000 Russians over Annexation
Newslook- WASHINGTON (AP)
US sanctions more than 1,000 Russians, firms, rejecting Putin’s ‘fraudulent’ annexation of Ukrainian regions. The U.S. on Friday sanctioned more than 1,000 people and firms connected to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including its Central Bank governor and families of National Security Council members, after President Vladimir Putin signed treaties absorbing occupied regions of Ukraine into Russia, in defiance of international law.
The Treasury Department named hundreds of members of Russia’s legislature, leaders of the country’s financial and military infrastructure and suppliers for sanctions designations. The Commerce Department added 57 companies to its list of export control violators, and the State Department added more than 900 people to its visa restriction list.
“We will not stand by as Putin fraudulently attempts to annex parts of Ukraine,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“The Treasury Department and U.S. government are taking sweeping action today to further weaken Russia’s already degraded military industrial complex and undermine its ability to wage its illegal war.”
After Russia’s annexation sham ceremony, Ukraine’s president says his country is submitting an “accelerated” application to join the NATO military alliance.
The comment Friday by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came just after Russia said it would annex four region of Ukraine it seized amid its war and held gunpoint referendums viewed as illegitimate by the international community.
Zelenskyy said: “We are taking our decisive step by signing Ukraine’s application for accelerated accession to NATO.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to annex parts of Ukraine in defiance of international law, saying Moscow would protect the newly incorporated regions by “all available means.”
He also urged Ukraine to sit down for peace talks but immediately insisted he won’t discuss handing them back, opening a new escalatory phase of his seven-month invasion of the country.
Kyiv and the West have rejected his land-grab in Ukraine. The European Union’s 27 member states said they will never recognize the illegal referendums that Russia organized “as a pretext for this further violation of Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
In a Kremlin ceremony at the ornate St. George’s Hall to herald the annexation of the occupied parts of Ukraine, Putin accused the West of fueling the hostilities as part of what he said is a plan to turn Russia into a “colony” and a “crowds of slaves.” The hardening of his position, in the conflict that that has killed and wounded tens of thousands of people, further cranked up tensions, already at levels unseen since the Cold War.
The European Union immediately responded to Putin’s latest step with a joint statement rejecting and condemning “the illegal annexation” of the four regions: Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine vowed to continue fighting.
“We don’t pay attention to those whose time to take pills has come. The army is working, Ukraine is united — only moving forward,” said Andrii Yermak, head of the presidential office..
The ceremony came three days after the completion in the occupied regions of Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” on joining Russia that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a bare-faced land grab held at gunpoint and based on lies.
