Nearly a Hundred Banks and the Moscow Exchange: Who Made the EU’s New Sanctions List Against Russia

The EU Council adopted its 21st package of sanctions against Russia in response to its military actions in Ukraine. The “blacklist” includes, among others, nearly a hundred Russian banks, the A7 crypto-payment system created by PSB Bank (formerly Promsvyazbank), the A7 crypto payment system, and the Moscow Exchange, an exchange holding company that organizes trading in Russia.

The new sanctions package “includes tough economic measures targeting the sectors that have the greatest impact on the Russian economy and its ability to finance its war of aggression against Ukraine,” according to a press release from the Council of the EU. This is “the largest package of individual restrictions in the past four years, comprising a total of 218 entities, of which 48 are individuals and 170 are legal entities.”

This time, the EU Council focused most of its attention on “the Russian financial and banking sector as an instrument of the Russian military economy.” As a result, 94 Russian banks and major financial institutions were hit with sanctions. These include, in particular: Renaissance Credit Bank, Trust National Bank, Uralsib, Avangard, National Standard Bank, Ak Bars, BKS, FINAM, Russian Standard Bank, as well as the digital banks Ozon Bank, Yandex Bank, and Wildberries Bank (WB Bank).

The EU has also decided to “freeze assets and impose a ban on the provision of funds” to the organizer of exchange trading in Russia—the Moscow Exchange. The document explains that the exchange “serves as the central platform for domestic financing and trading, in particular for investments in Russian military corporations and government bonds (OFZs) issued by the Ministry of Finance.”

In addition, the Russian crypto payment system A7 has been subject to EU restrictions—according to the sanctions list, it is “partially owned by the [Russian] state-owned enterprise — PSB Bank” and was created as a cryptocurrency project to launch A7A5, a stablecoin backed by fiat ruble deposits in PSB Bank accounts. “For every ruble spent on A7A5, an equivalent amount is credited to PSB Bank’s account, thereby increasing the state-owned institution’s capital,” the document states.

The press release specifies that the EU will also add four entities linked to the “A7 network, including its contacts in Africa,” to its blacklists. In addition, the European Union will extend the transaction ban to 14 more crypto platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. The document does not specify exactly which platforms these are.

Among the individuals on the European “blacklist” are, among others: the founder of the Safmar Group— billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev; former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich; Oleg Belozerov, CEO of the Russian Railways (RZD) transportation company; and the co-owners of the Svetofor discount store chain, Andrei, Sergey, and Valentina Schneider.

Companies—including foreign ones that, according to the EU, are linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet”—were also subject to sanctions. These include, in particular: the India-based shipping company Peninsular Maritime India Private Limited; Redwood Global Supply FZ-LLC, registered in the UAE (which the sanctions list describes as “one of the main maritime traders of Russian crude oil and petroleum products”), the Omani shipping company White Agate Marine SPC, and another UAE-based company, Zulu Ships Management.

This article is being updated

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor