WASHINGTON, March 12. /TASS/. The US has added to its blacklist some ten members of the management board of Russia’s VTB Bank, which was earlier sanctioned due to the start of the special operation in Ukraine, the US Department of Treasury stated.
"Today, OFAC (the Office of Foreign Assets Control) is designating the ten individuals comprising VTB Bank’s management board," the statement reads.
The US leadership has imposed sanctions on General Secretary of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov and ten other Russian lawmakers, who submitted to the State Duma (lower house) a draft appeal on the need to recognize the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, the US Department said.
Apart from Zyuganov, the blacklist includes Ivan Melnikov, Vladimir Kashin, Nikolay Kolomeytsev, Yury Afonin, Dmitry Novikov, Leonid Kalashnikov, Kazbek Taysaev, Yevgeny Bessonov, Nikolay Osadchy and Alexey Kurinny.
Furthermore, the penalties were introduced against Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin. According to the Department of the Treasury, he was already subjected to sanctions in 2014.
The US Department of the Treasury has allowed transactions for non-governmental organizations to support humanitarian projects as well as to develop democracy in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, according to additional guidance issued by the department.
As the Department of the Treasury stated, this document "authorizes certain transactions that are ordinarily incident and necessary to non-governmental organizations’ activities in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) or Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) regions of Ukraine, including activities related to humanitarian projects to meet basic human needs, democracy building, education, non-commercial developments projects, and environmental and natural resource protection."