Canada has imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia’s media machine designed to puncture disinformation campaigns about the war in Ukraine.
The sanctions target Russian news agencies, TV stations and journalists, including Petr Akopov, who has written approvingly about President Vladimir Putin’s rationale for the invasion of Ukraine, and Tigran Keosayan, a pro-Kremlin television presenter.
She says more economic sanctions are forthcoming against Russian nationals and Russian companies in an effort to further isolate the country.
The federal government is levelling economic sanctions on 22 senior Belarusian officials who Canada says have supported Russia’s attacks on Ukraine.
According to Global Affairs Canada, the officials are part of Belarus’s Department of Defence and allowed their country “to serve as a launch pad for the Russian invasion.”
Canada announced a further round of sanctions against Russia on Monday following a meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his counterparts from Britain and the Netherlands.
Another 10 individuals have been added to the sanctions list. Their names were suggested by Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader and activist.
“These sanctions put increased pressure on Russia’s leadership, including Putin’s inner circle,” said Trudeau.
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Western sanctions on Russia were akin to a declaration of war and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine would lead to catastrophic consequences for the world.
Putin reiterated that his aims were to defend Russian-speaking communities through the “demilitarisation and de-Nazification” of the country so that Russia’s former Soviet neighbor became neutral and no longer threatened Russia.
SWIFT is the international payment system. Cutting off a top country from SWIFT access is a very big deal.
When the US and EU trotted out the SWIFT sanction card, I thought I got that one wrong. Closer inspection by Eurointelligence and others shows it’s Not So Swift After All.
One of the bolder economic moves against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine was taken by the European Union and Canada when they banned all Russian aircraft from landing in their countries or even flying through their airspace. That decision was put to the test yesterday when an Aeroflot commercial jet flew through Canadian airspace on the way from Miami to Moscow. It was a brief incursion, but it still violated the new rules. Transport Canada and the Nav Canada air traffic control service are currently “reviewing” the incident, but it’s unclear what can be done about it or what will happen if they do it again today.
Waving sanctions in front of Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be enough to stop the invasion of Ukraine, according to former President Donald Trump, who said he fears that war in Ukraine could be a prelude to a wider conflict.
President Biden was set to announce new sanctions on Russia Thursday after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a massive overnight invasion of Ukraine — while some congressional Republicans claimed Biden’s “weak” leadership had help cause the war.
The 12:30 p.m. speech follows a phone call lasting more than an hour between Biden and other leaders of the G7 group of nations to discuss the precise punishments to be laid on Moscow’s government and economy.
As U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration considers economic threats to thwart what it fears is a new Kremlin plan to invade Ukraine, there is one option that is reportedly on the short list: cutting Russia off from the global electronic-payment-messaging system known as SWIFT.
In an interview on CTV News Channel’s Power Play with host Evan Solomon on Thursday, Stepanov said the possibility of new sanctions wouldn’t influence the country’s future actions.
If that were true, he’d be saying, “No, please don’t sanction us!”
The Trump administration had imposed crushing sanctions on Iran, which is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, in an effort to get the country to abandon its nuclear program.
h/t Marvin
President Joe Biden received a sizable campaign contribution from a Russia lobbyist just months before declining to enforce sanctions on a Russian firm building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, according to a report.
President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet face to face in Geneva, Switzerland in June. Although the two leaders have reportedly spoken twice since Biden took office, this will be their first in-person meeting since then, and it comes on the heels of Biden being criticized domestically for waiving sanctions on a Russian-German pipeline.
Iran also wants to leverage its nuclear accomplishments and gain additional ones, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute.
MEMRI sai Iran wants to be “recognized as a nuclear threshold state with the ability to produce a nuclear bomb within a short time, in order to move towards a nuclear balance of terror in the Middle East, to block European initiatives to include the issue of Iran’s ballistic missile development and its expansion in the region in a new agreement, and to ensure the continued existence of the Iranian regime.”
