Washington on Tuesday announced that the U.S. and a handful of key economic allies will prohibit imports of Russian gold, Moscow’s largest export outside of the energy sector, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.
In a statement, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on 70 entities, including State Corporation Rostec. and its key holdings and affiliates, as well as 29 Russian individuals.
The Treasury Department redesignated the so-called DNR and LNR, and sanctioned Vitaliy Pavlovich Khotsenko, who is "the newly appointed chairperson of the so-called government of the DNR," and 6 individuals who "are or have been high level officials in the so-called DNR and LNR governments.
The State Department in its turn is imposing sanctions on 45 entities and 29 individuals.
"Included in the State Department’s action is the designation of Russian Federation military units and the redesignation of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), which have been credibly implicated in human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine," the Treasury statement said.
The State Department will also move to impose visa restrictions on officials believed to have threatened or violated Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence, including on more than 500 Russian military officers and on officials involved in suppressing dissent.
The expanded sanctions represent the latest effort by the U.S. and its G7 partners to target Putin and alienate the country’s economy from international commerce and payments systems.
The UK, Canada, and Japan are joining in the U.S. effort to ban gold imports from Russia.
Alex Raufoglu
Washington D.C.
Politics
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Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
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He expressed his willingness to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the border between the two countries. "A meeting with Ilham Aliyev could take place at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I am open to such a format," Pashinyan said at a press conference today. According to Pashinyan, Armenia recently presented another proposal for a peace treaty to Azerbaijan.
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On August 31, Azerbaijan observes a "day of silence" before the Sunday’s early parliamentary elections for the unicameral Milli Majlis. All electoral campaigning is prohibited 24 hours before the voting. The early elections were initiated by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. This decision was motivated by the overlap of the scheduled elections in November with the global UN forum - the COP20 climate conference taking place in Baku.
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On August 30, at approximately 22:55, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor was disconnected from the country's power grid, as reported by the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The shutdown was caused by a lightning strike, which triggered the plant's safety systems to switch the station to a safe shutdown mode. Currently, the plant's staff is working on restarting the facility.
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