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Canada imposes new sanctions on Russia

The new sanctions will touch upon four individuals, five organizations and one financial institution

OTTAWA, September 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Canada has imposed a new package of sanctions against Russia, the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development told an Itar-Tass correspondent on Tuesday.

Earlier, Foreign Minister John Baird said in the House of Commons of the Canadian parliament that Canada is still discontent with what he called Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine and added that his country will continue political and economic isolation of the Russian Federation.

The new sanctions will touch upon four individuals, five organizations and one financial institution, he said.

The sanctions list includes: Russian state savings bank Sberbank, the Mytishchi Machine-Building Plant, the Kalinin Machine-Building Plant (military hardware manufacturers), the Tikhomirov Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design (developer of weaponry control systems).

It also includes the Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise (air defense system manufacturer) and the Altair Marine Scientific Research Institute of Radioelectronics (missile system and radar developer).

The individuals affected by the sanctions are: Russian deputy defense ministers Army General Dmitry Bulgakov and Colonel-General Yury Sadovenko, first deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Central Military District Troops Commander Colonel-General Nikolai Bogdanovsky and Russian Ground Forces Commander Colonel-General Oleg Salyukov.

Entry to Canada for them is banned, and all possible assets will be frozen.

The European Union and the United States imposed the latest batch of sectoral sanctions against Russia on September 12 despite the deal on a ceasefire, signed in Minsk a week before, between Kiev and the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s republics (DPR and LPR) in the embattled southeast of Ukraine.

The EU’s new punitive measures envision a ban for Russia’s largest state banks - Sberbank, VTB, VEB, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank to place bonds with maturity terms of over 30 days. The penalties also stipulate a ban on debt financing for energy companies Rosneft, Transneft and Gazprom Neft and defense enterprises Uralvagonzavod, Oboronprom and the United Aircraft Corporation.

The new US sanctions list includes Sberbank, Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, Vnesheconombank, and VTB. Now they cannot borrow for a period of more than 30 days. The US has also blocked the assets of five defense enterprises and banned the export of goods, services and technologies for projects carried out by Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz and Rosneft.

Russia came under Western punitive measures, originally visa bans and asset freezes, for incorporation of Crimea in mid-March after a coup in Ukraine in February. Later, Western claims that Russia is taking part in hostilities in southeast Ukraine, which Moscow has repeatedly denied, resulted in more serious, sectoral, restrictions.

In response, Moscow imposed on August 7 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States and Norway.