The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered new sanctions against Russia to the National Security and Defense Council, UNIAN reports.
The new measures affect captains from the "shadow fleet" of the Russian Federation, as well as thieves of Ukrainian cultural heritage. The "blacklist" are 56 citizens of the Russian Federation and one citizen of Iran, who are ship captains and are involved in the export of Russian oil, bypassing the established price ceiling.
The following tankers are subject to sanctions: Liberty, Bolero, Cassiopeia and Callisto.
The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) have also imposed sanctions, including on the operator "Sovcomflot".
In addition, restrictions will be applied to the captain of the Moti vessel of the Gatik Ship Management company, Evgeny Bezrukov, the captain of the Moti tanker operated by Gatik Ship Management, Igor Kucherov, the captain of the Fjord Seal tanker operated by Prominent Shipmanagement Limited. The sanctions also affected Iranian citizen Ali Mohseni, who is the captain of the Daksha tanker. The operator of this vessel is the UAE-registered Oceanlink Maritime DMCC.
As for the thieves of Ukraine's cultural heritage, sanctions have been imposed on individuals involved in theft through illegal archaeological excavations in the territory of temporarily occupied Crimea and the export of cultural property from the territory of Ukraine. These include, in particular, the First Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation Sergey Obrivalin, his deputy Vladimir Osintsev, the Head of the Department for State Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Roman Rybalo, and the Director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (also under sanctions) Nikolai Makarov. These individuals issued illegal permits for archaeological excavations in Russian-occupied Crimea.
Sanctions have also been imposed on individuals with dual citizenship (18 names in total). These included the First Deputy "Minister of Culture of Crimea" Olga Burova, as well as the director of the Melitopol Museum of Local Lore, Yevgeny Gorlachev, who shared with the Russian Federation information about the storage location of the "Scythian gold".
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen called on the West to tighten sanctions against Russia. According to her, the restrictions already introduced are already affecting the Russian economy.
The Business Insider edition notes that the sanctions imposed by the West have dealt a painful blow to the "shadow fleet" of the Russian Federation. The country is increasingly having problems with oil exports.
We recall that Bulgaria's name was also implicated in the incidents in the Baltic Sea.
On January 26, Sweden and Latvia launched an investigation into alleged sabotage of a cable connecting the two countries, and subsequently the Swedish police detained and boarded the Maltese-flagged Bulgarian ship "Vezhen", suspected of causing the damage.
The shipowner Bulgarian Navy categorically denied the version of intentional damage to the cable, but did not rule out that the ship's anchor may have severed the cable due to bad weather, as its retaining mechanism was damaged during a storm.
Sweden released the ship on February 3.