U.S. puts six Crimeans in Russian parliament on sanctions blacklist:
By RFE/RL
The United States has added six Crimean representatives newly elected to Russia's parliament to its sanctions blacklist for supporting Moscow's illegal annexation of the Ukrainian territory in 2014.
The six -- Dmitry Belik, Andrei Kozenko, Konstantin Bakharev, Svetlana Savchenko, Ruslan Balbek, and Pavel Shperov -- were all elected on September 18 to represent the Black Sea peninsula and its naval port of Sevastopol.
The elections were "illegitimate," the U.S. Treasury said on November 14, adding that the sanctions announcement follows similar action against the six by the European Union.
They were complicit in policies "that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine," it said.
The move was part of "maintaining pressure on Russia until it respects the security and sovereignty of Ukraine," said John Smith, acting director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
"Treasury will continue to sanction those individuals involved in Russia's annexation of Crimea and its destabilizing activities in Ukraine," he said.
The sanctions bar Americans and U.S. corporations from doing business with the six. Any assets they have on U.S. territory are also frozen. (w/AFP)