Banning dollar operations: how can the US extend sanctions against Russia

Available editionMerchant”Turned out to be a bill on new US sanctions against Russia, prepared by Republican Lindsay Graham and three of his colleagues. A significant part of the provisions of the document concerns not Russia, but the President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Фото: Depositphotos

Congressmen are demanding that the head of state reduce all sanctions already imposed against Russia from CAATSA to the Magnitsky Act into a single system, create a sanction coordination office in the US government for agreements with the EU to support sanctions, block dollar settlements of Russian banks, ban operations US residents with a new Russian state debt, to create a national center to combat the Russian threat, to look for Vladimir Putin’s assets in the world and even to resolve the issue of recognizing Russia as a “state sponsoring terror” zma.

The document also contains a mechanism designed to prevent Donald Trump from withdrawing the United States from NATO.

"The act of protecting US security from Kremlin aggression 2018" was submitted to the Senate last Wednesday, but it has not yet been officially published.

The document received at the disposal of Kommersant is available at link.

Prepared by Senators Lindsay Graham, Robert Menendez, Corey Gardner and Ben Cardin, the text actually begins with appeals to President Donald Trump. In particular, he is called upon to support efforts to counteract interference "by the Russian government or other foreign players in the activities of US government agencies, as well as in the democratic processes in the country." The second wish is “to publicly urge the Russian government to return the Crimea to the control of the Ukrainian government, and also to urge the separatists to abandon support for violence in eastern Ukraine.” This paragraph also refers to the "occupation and support of the separatists" in the territories of Georgia and in Moldova. Another requirement for President Trump is to urge Moscow to abandon the support of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who, according to the authors of the bill, continues to "commit war crimes."

On the whole, the structure of this document is justified by its general meaning - the bill assumes the unification of all anti-Russian sanctions introduced by individual acts, from “Ukrainian” to “cyber-terrorism”, into a single mechanism.

To coordinate this process in the US government is proposed to introduce a "sanctions coordination office." Recall that now the "political" part of the sanctions is implemented by the State Department, the financial - by the OFAC office of the US Treasury. The “Sanctions Office” involves the coordination of sanctions with the European Union, including, apparently, financial ones. In addition, it is proposed to create another structure, the “National Joint Center for Responding to Hybrid Threats,” whose task will be to systematically combat the attempts of the insidious influence of the Russian Federation in the world and in the United States. Finally, with the 2020 of the fiscal year, it is proposed to open access to the US budget fund in the amount of $ 250 million for countries vulnerable to Russian exposure.

From the text of the document, it follows that senators representing both the Republican and Democratic parties consider President Trump to be an unpredictable politician. The first chapter of the document concerns US relations with NATO - an alliance that Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized. If the bill is passed, the financing of steps aimed, directly or indirectly, at supporting attempts by “any representative of the US government” to withdraw the country from NATO will be banned. Such a decision is theoretically possible, but it will be possible only if two thirds of the members of the Senate vote for it. The authors of the bill spoke not only for maintaining NATO membership, but also for strengthening the alliance. The document mentions that once every 90 days, the US Secretary of State, after consulting with the Secretary of Defense, should report to the relevant Congressional committees on the "threats facing NATO." This report, in particular, should indicate "options for adjusting US commitments to NATO in order to respond to new threats and challenges from the Russian government." Also mentioned is the possibility of the United States donating surplus weapons to the other NATO countries - the head of the Pentagon should, after consulting with the secretary of state, consider the need and possibility of this within 60 days after the law entered into force.

In the economic part of the project, the most important the requirement to ban operations in the United States (and the freezing of assets) of seven Russian banking institutions already in a sanction regime, including Sberbank, VTB, VEB and Promsvyazbank. In practice, this will mean that these banks will not be able to receive standard dollar payments through correspondent accounts with US banks - this is exactly what business circles in Russia fear most of all. In addition, the text contains a de facto ban on operations with the Russian state debt with a maturity of more than two weeks - but only with new releases, which significantly mitigates the possible consequences of such a decision. In addition, the project proposes to extend monitoring of the violation of sanctions on the activities of insurance companies.

In the “personal” part of the sanction project, the main idea is achieve more effective execution of the act CAATSA. In this regard, senators propose to shorten the timeline for the execution of sanctions, to update the Kremlin list within 60 days after the adoption of the bill, as well as to begin practical work on finding assets and personal status in the world of Vladimir Putin.

A lot of attention is paid in the text. cyber security issues - A key theme that remains the focus of attention in the United States throughout the presidency of Donald Trump. The bill supports the idea of ​​creating an office on cyberspace and the digital economy with the head of the ambassador in the State Department. In addition, the fourth chapter of the bill is devoted to the prevention of cybercrime. The authors propose to impose sanctions on Russians involved in “malicious activity in cyberspace”, adopt an act on the prevention of international cybercrime, and also introduce amendments to the US criminal law that will allow to bring federal accusations to those involved in attacks on critical infrastructure and systems related with the election.

The topic of the elections is continued in the next chapter, which literally repeats the text of the bill proposed by Democratic Senator Dick Durbin in April 2018. The text was heard twice and hung on the consideration of the Senate Juridical Committee - now it is proposed to consider it again, already in the package of other proposals. This is an amendment to the law on immigration and citizenship, which proposes introduce a definition of “undue interference in US elections”. By this, the senators propose to understand such a “behavior of a foreign citizen”, which is interference in elections at any level by the order of a foreign government. Those who are considered to be involved in such an intervention will not be issued a visa in the United States.

Another chapter, the third, concerns non-proliferation of chemical weapons. It proposes “putting pressure on the Russian authorities” so that they stop trying to prevent the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from investigating cases of its use. The draft law also contains an initiative to “punish the Russian authorities for the production and use of chemical weapons”, as well as to deter Russia from its proliferation. The need for such measures is justified by the fact that in March of this year “the Russian authorities consciously used poisonous substance “Novichok”, trying to kill ex-GRU officer Sergei Skripal,” and “were unwilling or unable to convince Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally, to stop using chemical weapons against the civilian population of Syria.”

The bill quite pedantically lists all sorts of secondary issues related to Russia. Thus, a separate project announced a program to restrict Russia’s ability to use Interpol’s “red orders” to persecute its political opponents, extending the moratorium on US imports of uranium from Russia from 2020 to 2030 a year.

The document also contains a proposal for the United States to consider the issue of recognizing Russia as "a state sponsoring terrorism."

Earlier, Lindsay Graham stated that prepared a bill on "hellish" sanctions against Russia.

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