© AP Photo/ Sergei Chuzavkov
Ukraine's president has endorsed sanctions against five subsidiaries of Russian state banks.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has approved the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine's proposal to impose one-year sanctions on five subsidiaries of Russian state banks on Thursday.
"Poroshenko put into effect the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine's March 15, 2017, decision 'On the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions)' for a number of legal entities," a statement on the president's website reads.
The measures affect the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Sberbank, VTB, BM-Bank, Prominvestbank and VS Bank.
On Wednesday, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine asked the National Bank and the Security Service of Ukraine to submit their proposals on sanctions against banks, some of whose shares are owned by Russian state banks.
Ukrainian radicals blocked the entrance into the central office of Sberbank, locking over 400 employees inside on Monday and continued to hinder the access to the bank the following day, according to the Bank's address to Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko, published Tuesday. Besides, the Sberbank and Alfa-Bank's ATMs in Ukraine have been
subjected to vandalism by the radicals.
On Thursday, the Kremlin spokesman said the actions against Russian banks' subsidiaries in Ukraine contradict international law, and
Moscow will take all legitimate measures to protect them if necessary.
Comment: Poroshenko has also legitimized the UkroNazi blockade of Donbass. As Sputnik
reports:
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko approved the decision of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council on the termination of cargo transportation with Donbass areas not controlled by Kiev, according to a decree published Thursday.
"Implement the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of March 15, 2017 'On urgent additional measures to counter hybrid threats to Ukraine's national security'," the document said.
As Alexander Mercouris of the Duran
notes both these moves are counter-productive; closing and sanctioning banks for ideological reasons while the economy is suffering is ridiculous, and imposing a blockade on Donbass will only quicken their pivot towards Russia.
In the beginning of March a new ceasefire regime was announced in Eastern Ukraine. Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin stated that it would only hold as long as Ukraine was able to
control the radicals. These recent developments, coupled with
oligarchs vying for power in Kiev, reveal a power vacuum that radicals can use to advance their, and their sponsors', psychotic agendas:
In that case then that would suggest that Poroshenko's authority as Ukraine's President is seeping away, and that he is no longer fully in control, just as the Russian military move on Pristina in June 1999 during the Kosovo conflict, made without any order from Boris Yeltsin, was a clear sign that his authority as Russia's President was seeping away.
Comment: Poroshenko has also legitimized the UkroNazi blockade of Donbass. As Sputnik reports: As Alexander Mercouris of the Duran notes both these moves are counter-productive; closing and sanctioning banks for ideological reasons while the economy is suffering is ridiculous, and imposing a blockade on Donbass will only quicken their pivot towards Russia.
In the beginning of March a new ceasefire regime was announced in Eastern Ukraine. Deputy Defense Minister Eduard Basurin stated that it would only hold as long as Ukraine was able to control the radicals. These recent developments, coupled with oligarchs vying for power in Kiev, reveal a power vacuum that radicals can use to advance their, and their sponsors', psychotic agendas: