The UK imposed sanctions against Yandex Bank, the Russian “shadow fleet” and 10 GRU officers

The UK has introduced new sanctions against the Russian “shadow fleet” and companies that help Russia circumvent previous restrictions, the government reported . In total, 70 new items were added to the sanctions list.

The restrictions included more than 20 oil tankers and companies that, according to British authorities, help Russia in the illegal oil trade: in particular, those that insure ships with fuel.

The list also included several gas carriers that were previously purchased “for huge amounts of money” to service Novatek’s Arctic LNG-2 project, the government said.

In addition, the British authorities imposed sanctions against the Neptune company, which is associated with the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces. The British government indicated that this company is purchasing Western technologies for the Russian army.

The list also included 10 people who are called GRU officers: Ruslan Koshkin, Alexander Votchenko, Nikolai Sazhin, Sergei Mazurik, Alexander Matrosov, Roman Gaivoronsky, Dmitry Zubkov, Stanislav Popov, Konstantin Strafilov and Maxim Mamontov. The justification for the sanctions states ( .pdf ) that all of them are involved in the work of Neptune.

The restrictions included, among others, Yandex Bank and WB Bank, Evrofinance Mosnarbank and Rosgosstrakh.

On June 15, the European Union imposed sanctions against blogger Sasha meets Russia , Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church Tikhon Shevkunov and the developer of the facial recognition system NtechLab. The UK had previously introduced new restrictions in May: then the head of Rosmolodezh Grigory Gurov and the military-patriotic center “Warrior” were included in the list.