The US Treasury Department has removed three Russian ships from its sanctions list. This became known on March 31 from a press release issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). One of the vessels is suspected of transporting stolen grain and coal from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. The ships in question are the container vessels Fesco Moneron and Fesco Magadan, as well as the cargo ship Sv Nikolay. The removal of sanctions allows the vessels to enter ports and receive maritime services that were previously restricted under US measures.
Fesco Moneron and Fesco Magadan are linked to the Fesco Transport Group — one of Russia’s largest transport and logistics companies. The current owner of the vessels is JSC Investkonsalting (TIN 7708648850). Although the parent company of the Fesco Group is also under sanctions, the restrictive measures on the vessels themselves were imposed in 2022, when they were owned by PSB Leasing LLC — a subsidiary of Promsvyazbank (PSB), a Russian state-owned financial institution that provides loans to Russian military enterprises and services a significant share of its defense contracts. According to vessel tracking services, both ships operate out of ports in Russia’s Far East.
The cargo ship Sv Nikolay is suspected of transporting stolen property from Russian-occupied territories. In 2022, American investigative journalists established via satellite imagery that this very vessel was used by Russia to export Ukrainian grain from Sevastopol for sale to Turkish companies. In 2025, the Kyiv Independent reported that Sv Nikolay was transporting Donbas metallurgical coke from occupied Mariupol to Algeria, while the shipment was formally documented as cargo traveling from the Russian port of Temryuk to Turkey. The vessel had previously been sanctioned as part of measures targeting Alfa-Bank. Since December 16, 2022, it has been owned and operated by the Russian transport company LLC Riversi Plus.
How the removal of sanctions against the vessels is being commented upon
In a comment to the Kyiv Independent, a US Treasury Department spokesperson stated that such actions “do not represent broader changes in US policy toward Russia,” and that “the removals made today were conducted as part of OFAC’s routine activities and based on thorough analysis.”
The spokesperson clarified that such reviews may be initiated at the request of sanctioned entities, for OFAC’s own internal reasons, or “in response to other national security and foreign policy priorities.”
Ukraine’s Presidential Commissioner for Sanctions Policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, also responded to the US decision.
“This targeted sanctions relief appears unjustified. It is difficult to ignore the fact that one of the vessels entered occupied Crimea to collect Ukrainian grain while Russia was blocking Ukrainian ports. Such steps create no pressure on the Kremlin and certainly do not compel Putin to end the war,” — Vlasiuk stated.
As a reminder, on March 13 it was reported that the United States had temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil that was already aboard tankers at sea at that time.