As part of its latest round of sanctions against Russia, the United States on Wednesday announced that it would be targeting “a global network of more than 40 individuals and entities led by US-designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.”For the first time, according to a press release from the US Treasury Department, the agency was going after “companies operating in Russia’s virtual currency mining industry, which is reportedly the third largest in the world.”

As a result of the Russian war and “undermining democracy in Belarus,” the State Department is imposing new visa restrictions. The Biden administration’s actions on Wednesday are the latest to punish the Kremlin and its allies for invading Ukraine in February. Officials from the US and Europe say the war could last months. Experts told CNN that sanctions are unlikely to deter Russian President Vladimir Putin from attacking Ukraine.

“Aleksandr Borodai, Igor Girkin (a.k.a. Igot Strelkov), and the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic” were all previously sanctioned as “Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs)” by the US Treasury in December 2014.
The US Department of Justice charged Malofeyev with sanctions evasion earlier this month, the first charges filed since Russia’s war in Ukraine began.
The US sanctioned Malofeyev on Wednesday for “acting or purporting to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, the Russian government.”
The Treasury Department also sanctioned Malofeyev’s “vast global network of cut-outs and proxies” involved in pro-Kremlin propaganda. Sanctioned are Russian, Moldovan, and Singaporean entities, as well as Malofeyev’s son.
The Treasury Department also targeted “Public Joint Stock Company Transkapitalbank (TKB)” and its subsidiary, as well as Russian virtual currency mining companies.
No asset, no matter how complex, will be used by the Putin regime to counteract sanctions, according to a statement issued Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the State Department is restricting visas for 635 Russians, including Duma members and “ten purported authorities” of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.
A ban on visas for Russian officials Khusein Merlovich Khutaev, Nurid Denilbekovich Salamov, and Dzhabrail Alkhazurovich Akhmatov is also imposed.
Blinken said the State Department is also restricting visas for “17 individuals responsible for undermining democracy in Belarus.”
In Ukraine, human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law are rampant, according to Blinken.
The US keeps “adding different Russian oligarchs, different Russian banks that perhaps weren’t in the first few rounds of sanctions,” said Rachel Rizzo, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.
“They’ll keep crippling the Russian economy even as Putin keeps painting a rosy picture of it,” she said. “It will undoubtedly contract significantly over the next year.”