On February 23, a number of allies of Ukraine introduced new sanctions against Russia. The European Union imposed the 13th sanctions package the day before the second anniversary of Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The United States of America adopted their sanctions at the same time, when President Joe Biden announced the addition of 500 new entities to the sanctions lists. The companies that have been investigated by Trap Aggressor project of the think tank StateWatch can be found in both sanctions packages.
The EU imposed sanctions on 106 individuals and 88 companies responsible for the threat to the sovereignty of Ukraine, and also added 27 companies to the list of supporters of the Russian military and industrial complex. These 27 companies include Russian company VNIIR-Progress. It is a producer of Kometa modules which help Russian unmanned aerial vehicles Shahed and Orlan to avert the influence of radioelectronic warfare devices.
Earlier, Trap Aggressor informed that Russian company VNIIR-Progress was a part of the group of Serb businessman and pro-Russian politician Nenad Popović. In November of 2023 Popovic as well as a group of Russian companies, was sanctioned by the US.
Indian company Si2 Microsystems Pvt Ltd has also happened to be under EU sanctions. According to Trap Aggressor, it supplied electronic components to VNIIR-Progress which later were found in Kometa modules.
EU sanctions have been also introduced against a number of companies from Alabuga special economic zone in Russia. Earlier, The Washington Post published an article about Shahed drones being assembled and produced on this territory. The ex CEO of the Trap Aggressor project Glib Kanievskyi told reporters about Iranian drones found in Ukraine. New economic restrictions by the US were also imposed on forementioned companies from Alabuga.
New US economic restrictions were published along with EU sanctions lists on February 23rd.
The US list of sanctioned companies includes Avbis, which handles wholesale of electric goods and imports equipment used by the Russian military and industrial complex. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention of Ukraine informed earlier that it had added Avbis to the list of potentially sanctioned companies due to Avbis importing German Spinner machine tools to Russia to produce high-explosive and fragmentation shells for Russian tanks. Before that, Trap Aggressor informed how Spinner machine tools found their way to Russia through Turkey. Foreign suppliers found themselves under American sanctions along with Russian importers, in particular, Turkish Olimpik Gama company, which supplied Spinner machine tools to Russia.
Besides, US sanctions have been imposed on companies working in logistics of the Russian military and industrial complex. One of them is the TransContainer company, the largest container railway operator in Russia. According to Trap Aggressor, this group of companies could have been involved in the transportation of North-Korean weapons and railway logistics of the Russian production of Shahed drones in Alabuga.
Adding these companies to the sanctions lists is necessary to impose pressure on the Russian supply chains. Western companies are prohibited to trade with sanctioned individuals. This complicates and impedes trade processes for the Russian military and industrial complex. Apart from it, even Chinese banks cease serving sanctioned Russian enterprises. However, introduction of Western sanctions against Russian companies still remains challenging since a number of unknown businesses keep emerging in place of each sanctioned Russian company which continues supplying goods to the aggressor country.