U.S. Sanctions targeting Russia on the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine will also hit China-linked entities that are violating export bans against Moscow, according to the State Department.
The Biden administration has identified that China-linked firms—some Europe-based—are evading existing sanctions against Russia intended to weaken Moscow’s ability to finance and supply its military offensive in Ukraine.
“There will be in the sanctions packages that we will be announcing tomorrow on the one-year anniversary of the war,” U.S. Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said during a live Washington Post event on Feb. 23. “We will also be putting other constraints on entities, Chinese-based or Chinese subs of entities in Europe.”
In January, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned the Chinese technology company Spacety for providing geolocating data to a private Russian mercenary group that has fought alongside Moscow forces in the war.Some of the items being accessed by Russia include laptops, smartphones, dishwashers, washing machines, and cars. Nuland alleged that developing countries are acting as intermediaries to supply the goods to Moscow.
U.S. officials are concerned that advanced semiconductor chips in these products could be used for military purposes.
“They can cannibalize this machinery to get the advanced chips that we have denied them so that they can make more rockets,” Nuland said. “We will clamp down on that evasion starting tomorrow.”
The State Department has taken a firmer stance against countries that would send lethal aid to Russia, which Nuland and other U.S. officials suspect China’s ruling communist party is considering. On Thursday, when asked by NBC whether the Biden administration would share the intelligence behind these suspicions, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that they have no plans to do so but it is not off the table.
