Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo is planning to announce a crackdown on Russian attempts to circumvent myriad sanctions imposed since the invasion of Ukraine last year in a speech to the Council on Foreign Affairs Tuesday, CNN is reporting.
"As we look forward, one of the centerpieces of our strategy will be to counter attempts to evade our sanctions," Adeyemo will say, according to excerpts of his speech obtained by CNN. "We know Russia is actively seeking ways to circumvent these sanctions. ... In fact, one of the ways we know our sanctions are working is that Russia has tasked its intelligence services — the FSB and GRU — to find ways to get around them.”
The scheduled speech will take place just days before the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Since the invasion on Feb. 24, the United States has imposed "thousands" of sanctions intended to hurt the Russian economy, making it harder for Russian President Vladimir Putin to prosecute the war in Ukraine, according to the report.
Those enacted sanctions targeted Russian politicians, oligarchs, companies, and cutting off Russia's national bank from its reserves and international messaging systems used to process financial transactions.
"A big piece of this is information and intelligence sharing, which is something we started doing even before Russia's invasion," Adeyemo said in an interview with CNN. "So mapping out an evasion network that allows us to look across jurisdictions to share information and then take action is a big piece of this."
He told the news outlet that the measures will help hinder Russia's war effort, while strengthening Ukraine.
"The thing that we are doing with our colleagues at Commerce is we're slowing Russia down, and our colleagues at the Defense Department are speeding the Ukrainians up," he said in the interview. "So they're getting them the arms they need to fight off Russia in their country, while Commerce and Treasury are slowing down Russia's ability to rearm. We're already seeing a big impact."
According to the report, Russia has still been able to evade the sanctions and keep cash flowing to the war effort; and Adeyemo's speech is an effort to bolster international support until Russia stops its military actions.
"Spending the country's savings can hide the damage for now, but our actions are forcing Russia to mortgage its economic future to save face today," his scheduled remarks say. "Of course, we have more work to do, and we will continue to do more until Russia's ceases its baseless and illegal invasion. But one year into this conflict, Russia's economy looks more like Iran's than a G-20 country."
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