Canada imposed new sanctions against Russia on March 15 / ROMAN PILIPEY / EPA / TASS

Canada imposed new sanctions against Russia on March 15, the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported on its website. The sanctions list includes 114 individuals and 15 legal entities. The restrictions are intended to be a response to Russia's actions in the Kerch Strait, eastern Ukraine and Crimea, according to the report.

Canada's sanctions list includes, in particular, the chairman of the board of Gazprombank Andrei Akimov, VTB resident Andrei Kostin, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, Russian National Guard director Viktor Zolotov, businessman Arkady Rotenberg's son Igor Rotenberg, and former head of Russian Railways Vladimir Yakunin.

The sanctions also affected the companies Sukhoi, Tupolev, MiG, Power Machines, Stroygazmontazh and ten other Russian enterprises.

A small strait in the context of big politics

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Earlier on Friday, the European Union announced new sanctions. Brussels included eight people on the sanctions list, whom the European authorities consider to be involved in the conflict in the Kerch Strait. On the evening of March 15, the United States also expanded the sanctions. The US Treasury Department imposed restrictions on six individuals and eight companies. The department explained the expansion of the sanctions list by the "unjustified attack on Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait." Both lists include the head of the FSB command post for Crimea and Sevastopol, Ruslan Romashkin, the head of the border department of the special service for Crimea, Sergei Stankevich, and his deputy, Andrei Shein. Romashkin and Shein are also on Canada's new sanctions list.

The sanctions include a ban on entry for those on the lists into the specified countries and the blocking of their assets there.

The Kerch Strait incident involving Ukrainian Navy vessels occurred in late November 2018. At that time, Russian border guards forcibly detained two Ukrainian artillery boats and a barge that had crossed the Russian border, as well as their crews, in the Kerch Strait. A total of 24 people were detained, later arrested and transferred to Moscow pretrial detention centers. Russian authorities claimed that the Ukrainian ships had crossed the Russian border illegally. Kyiv claimed that the ships had requested permission to pass under the Crimean Bridge in the prescribed manner, but had not received a response from Russian border guards. Ukraine considers the detained sailors prisoners of war.

Canada follows US and EU in imposing new sanctions against Russia