Ukraine has broadened sanctions against Russian companies and citizens to include aluminum and power producer En+ Group and several other Russian firms, as written in a new decree signed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
The measures are a continuation of Kiev’s response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its support for a pro-Moscow insurgency in the east of Ukraine.
Wednesday’s decree said that assets of En+ Group, owned by billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, would be frozen for a three-year period and that limitations would be imposed on the company’s commercial operations in the country.
En+ holds a more than 50 percent stake in aluminum giant Rusal, which operates the Mykolaiv alumina plant in Ukraine. Both companies declined to comment.
The United States imposed sanctions against En+ and Rusal last year, but they were lifted in January after an intense lobbying campaign in which tycoon Oleg Deripaska agreed to relinquish control over his corporate empire.
Deripaska, who remains blacklisted, has sued the United States over the sanctions, saying that he had been the “latest victim” in the U.S. probe into Moscow’s alleged election interference.
Kiev imposed three-year sanctions against Deripaska last year, freezing his assets in the country and barring him and Rusal from withdrawing capital from Ukraine.
