US Congress bill forces institutions to comply with Russian sanctions
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The majority of congressmen voted in support of this.
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Congress passed a bill that forces US financial institutions to comply.
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives of the US Congress passed a bill regarding the compliance of US financial institutions with sanctions against Russia and Belarus.
About 418 congressmen have supported the initiative, while two voted it down. The Senate is to review the bill. If the upper chamber approves, the president will have to sign it.
US sanctions against Russia and Belarus enforce US individuals and legal entities to abide by them - however, there is the issue of foreign subsidiaries of US financial institutions, and the aforementioned bill intends to clarify the issue.
White House reveals new batch of sanctions against Russia
A US senior administration official told reporters, on Sunday, that the new round of US sanctions against Russia goes into effect today.
"These sanctions we are announcing go into effect in the US today, or in some cases, they get published to the Federal Register tomorrow," the official said.
Furthermore, the official added that the US is not introducing full-blocking sanctions against Gazprombank, stressing that they will only target some executives to create a “chilling threat effect”.
"This is not a full block. We are not freezing the assets of Gazprombank or prohibiting any transactions with Gazprombank. What we are signaling is that Gazprombank is not a safe haven, and so we are sanctioning some of their top business executives… to create a chilling effect," the official said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lately urged foreign countries to open accounts at Gazprombank to pay for Russian gas.
The official added: "Today we are banning the provision of accounting services, management control team, marketing all services that are used to operate multinational businesses but also to potentially create workarounds from sanctions."
It is worth mentioning that additional US sanctions will include restrictions on Russia's industrial sector.
