Information began to appear in foreign media that the EU and the United States have formulated and are going to introduce new tough sanctions against Russia. Future sanctions will "hit" individuals and companies who were directly involved in the arrest in the Kerch Strait.
The bill on anti-Russian measures will be submitted to the US Congress by senators of two fronts at once - the democratic and the republican. The reason is the following: our country's gross interference in the US election campaigns and aggressive attacks against Ukraine, in particular, the seizure of ships in the Kerch Strait.
What sanctions to expect from the United States
The document was authored by several senators - Republicans and Democrats.
In fact, the 2019 proposal is a harsher version of the already well-known draft law entitled "Protecting American Security from Kremlin Aggression" (abbreviated as DASKA). The previous document was presented to the US Congress in the summer of 2018.
On one of the points, there were no special changes: as in the previously proposed versions of the project, the United States has a need to take restrictive measures against the new state debt of our country and freeze any financial transactions of state banking institutions in Russia.
It is planned to strengthen the position in an updated version of the actual sanctions against the Russian banks themselves. And also against those who support Russia's line of oppressing democratic institutions in foreign countries. Those persons and legal entities who oppose investments in Russian projects related to natural gas outside the borders of the Russian state will be under the yoke.
Additionally, restrictions will affect Russian politicians, as well as their relatives who support "illegal actions in the interests of Vladimir Putin." The document invites the State Department to decide how our country complies with the status of a terrorist sponsor.
In the updated version of the document, the measures will affect the Russian public debt and the cybernetics sector.
On February 12, the first hearing in the renewed composition was to be held in the US Congress to consider this issue, however, according to Novaya Gazeta, the hearing was postponed to an indefinite date.
Restrictions for aggression in the Kerch Strait
At this time, the EU countries are proposing their sanctions measures for the seizure of ships belonging to Ukraine on the territory of the Kerch Strait. This was reported by the Financial Times and Sky News, citing their sources.
It is planned on February 18 to discuss specific restrictive measures regarding Russia. On this day, a meeting of foreign ministers from the EU countries will take place. That is, the sanctions will become known only in the "coming weeks". Actually, the EU threatens to adopt the agreed document in March, and it is planned to impose sanctions simultaneously with the "punitive" US document.
Sky News learned that restrictions will be applied personally to a number of Russians and companies involved in the Kerch incident. The most severe measures are asset freezing and entry denial.
According to one foreign media source, the Russian government continued to obstruct the flow of ships through the designated strait, which led to a significant decrease in traffic over the past two months. For this, by the way, the American authors of the DASKA document propose to introduce bans, including for shipbuilding companies in Russia.
What happened in Kerch
The attention of the entire world community was attracted by the incident at the end of November 2018. Three ships of the Ukrainian naval forces illegally crossed the border of the Russian state, entering the closed water area of the Black Sea. They headed towards the Kerch Strait.
According to the Russian military, foreign ships clearly demonstrated dangerous maneuvers, refused to comply with legal requirements from Russia. This led to the detention of ships and sailors on board. Due to the illegal crossing of the border, a criminal case was initiated against them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as a provocation. He specified that the Ukrainian crew was accompanied by two representatives of the security service of Ukraine, these people were in command of the entire operation. Putin explained the provocation in the Kerch Strait by the desire to raise the low pre-election rating of the main political figure of the neighboring state - the President of Ukraine.
