January 21, 2019
By Jordain Carney
A Russian oligarch (click here) with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin along with his allies will maintain a majority ownership in an energy company under a Treasury Department plan to lift sanctions against the business, according to The New York Times.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, in a letter to Congress last month, said that the agreement to lift the sanctions will reduce Oleg Deripaska's "direct and indirect shareholding stake in those entities"— Rusal, EN+ and EuroSibEnergo—"to below 50 percent."
But, according to documents obtained by the Times, Deripaska and his allies would own approximately 57 percent of EN+ under the Treasury Department plan....
US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin may have well committed fraud to maintain the lifting of sanctions. Where is the SEC on this?
January 21, 2019
By Darya Tarasova
Moscow - Russia has threatened "retaliatory measures" (click here) after the European Union slapped sanctions on senior members of its intelligence agency, the GRU.
"We reserve the right to take retaliatory measures over this unfriendly step," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday, referring to the sanctions, which include a ban on travel and an asset freeze.
Announced Monday, the sanctions target four people over last year's poisoning of ex-Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the UK.
Two of the men, GRU intelligence officers Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, were accused by UK authorities of carrying out the attack using nerve agent Novichok, which they have denied. The EU also sanctioned GRU head Igor Olegovich Kostyukov and his deputy, Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev.
Although the Skripals eventually recovered from the 2018 attack, the poison ended up in the hands of another British civilian couple, killing one woman....
Russia has no respect for international anything, be it a treaty or sanctions. Ukraine has problems. Russia wants to use Crimea for access to the Mediterranean Sea for the purpose of war.
By David Sheppard and Nastassia Astrasheuskaya
At least 14 crew members were killed and six are missing after two tankers caught fire in the Kerch Strait during a ship-to-ship transfer of LPG
Two ships that caught fire off the coast of Crimea, (click here) leaving at least 14 sailors dead and six missing, have been linked to Russian fuel supplies to Syria, which the US has targeted for sanctions.
The fires started during a ship-to-ship transfer of liquefied petroleum gas in the Kerch Strait on Monday. The operation took place in what were said to be rough seas, with both vessels having disabled their satellite tracking devices, which are designed to help avoid collisions.
Russian authorities have identified the tankers as the Candy (also known as Venice) and Maestro. The vessels were named by the US Treasury in November as having facilitated the shipment of fuel by Russia and Iran to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria in recent years.
Russian media reported on Tuesday morning that at least 14 people had died in the fire and six were unaccounted for. Twelve crew members, mainly Turkish and Indian citizens, had been saved, state-run newswire Tass said....
