President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree on the enactment of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) decision dated May 14, which updated the list of individuals and legal entities against whom sanctions are imposed, in particular, it has been expanded by “kingpins” and foreigners, who are “crime bosses.”
Relevant decree No. 203/2021 dated May 21 was released on the presidential website.
The decision, in particular, extends the sanctions imposed by President Petro Poroshenko decree No. 126 dated May 14, 2018 for three years (reintroduced with a slight enlargement by the decree dated June 21, 2018), as well as the amendments in 2019 and 2020.
The total number of individuals against whom sanctions were imposed in the new decree is 674, legal entities is 138, while in the decree three years ago 1,748 and 756, respectively.
In particular, the new list of legal entities still includes Russian media (Channel One, Zvezda, Ren TV and others) and media outlets operating in occupied Crimea (in particular, Yalta Television and Radio Company), payment systems (the Russian WebMoney, PayMaster, and also the Lithuanian WM Transfer), as well as a wide range of Russian IT companies (including Megasoft, Qiwi, Kaspersky Lab, Doctor Web, Yandex, 1C and others), and their branches as well. Sanctions were imposed against them for a period of three years.
The list of individuals, against whom restrictions are extended, includes leader of the Donetsk separatists Denys Pushylin; leader of the Luhansk separatists Leonid Pasichnyk; “head” of temporarily occupied Crimea Serhiy Aksionov, sanctions against which are imposed indefinitely, as well as citizens of Russia: Professor of MGIMO of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Yevgeny Voronin; founder of Parus Corporation Alexey Fedorenko and founder of 1C Boris Nuraliev, sanctions against them are imposed for three years. The rest of the persons on the list are 557 “kingpins” as well as 111 foreigners who are “crime bosses,” mostly citizens of Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan; sanctions are imposed against them indefinitely.
Sanctions against individuals provide for such measures as blocking assets, restricting trading operations, partially or completely stopping the transit of resources, flights and transportation through the territory of Ukraine, preventing the withdrawal of capital from Ukraine, suspension of performance of economic and financial obligations, cancellation or suspension of licenses, and other permits, the receipt or availability of which is a condition for the implementation of a certain type of activity, in particular, the cancellation or suspension of the validity of special permits for the use of subsoil.
It also provides for a ban on participation in privatization, lease of state-owned property by residents of a foreign state and persons who are directly or indirectly controlled by residents of a foreign state or act in their interests, a ban on the use of the radio frequency resource of Ukraine, restriction or termination of the provision of telecommunication services and the use of public telecommunication networks. It provides for a complete or partial ban on transactions with securities issued by persons subject to sanctions, a ban on the issuance of permits, licenses of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) for investments in a foreign country, placement of currency values on accounts and deposits in a foreign state, as well as termination of the issuance of permits, licenses for the import into Ukraine from a foreign state or export from Ukraine of currency values and restrictions on the issuance of cash on payment cards issued by residents of a foreign state.
