The list of sanctions includes TV presenter and Deputy General Director of Gazprom Media Tina Kandelaki, FSB and GRU officials.
For the first time in history, the Council of Ministers of the European Union for Foreign Affairs agreed on a list of people subject to sanctions for hybrid attacks and subversive activities against European countries. The Council of the EU announced this on Monday, December 16.
Sanctions were introduced against 16 Russians and three organizations from Russia. The list includes a TV presenter and deputy general director Gazprom Media Tina Kandelaki, head of GK LLC Structure Nikolai Tupikin and Russian Presidential Administration employee Sofia Zakharova.
In addition to these, restrictions will be applied to FSB officer Artem Kureev, who coordinated operations to spread disinformation in Europe and Africa. In particular, he launched the Rusafro and African Initiative propaganda projects (African initiative), spread disinformation accusing the West of “biological weapons experiments.”
Also under sanctions are GRU officers Yuri Sizov and Vladimir Lipchenko, who were involved in organizing sabotage and hybrid attacks. Their activities include the creation of intelligence networks, arson and attacks on critical infrastructure in EU countries and Ukraine.
Another person on the sanctions list, GRU Major General Andrei Averyanov, is leading operations in Africa to undermine democracy, the sanctions draft said. Russian forces may have mined gold from Mali to finance these operations, according to the document’s authors.
Among the legal entities on the EU sanctions list are the GRU military unit 29 155 and the project African initiative.
The European Union is also imposing sanctions against 26 individuals and two legal entities from Belarus in connection with the situation in this country and its participation in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. Most of the list are judges and heads of correctional colonies accused in the EU of human rights violations.
The list also mentions businessmen, particularly the general director of OJSC Belarusian Andrey Rybakov and several co-owners of VLATE LLC Logistics
Sanctions are also levied against VLATE Logistics and against the LLC Rusexpedition.
We remind you that today EU ministers adopted the 15th package of sanctions against Russia. The new restrictions are aimed at Vladimir Putin’s “shadow fleet” and are designed to weaken the military-industrial complex of the Russian Federation.
Source: korrespondent
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