Russia gold import ban amongst G7 response to Ukraine crisis
The G7 group of nations has pledged a number of new measures in response to the continuing aggression in Ukraine by Russia, which has defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in more than a century.
In their Statement on Support for Ukraine, the G7 said,
‘We will continue to explore new ways to isolate Russia from participating in the global market and crack down on evasion. We are determined to reduce Russia’s revenues, including from gold. We will also continue to target evasion and backfilling activities. We will further reduce Russia’s export revenues by taking appropriate steps to further reduce dependency on Russian energy [and] we will continue to coordinate on tariff measures on imports from Russia and explore possible pathways in line with our respective legislation to use the revenues to assist Ukraine where applicable.’
They added: ‘We will align and expand targeted sanctions to further restrict Russia’s access to key industrial inputs, services, and technologies produced by our economies, particularly those supporting Russia’s armament industrial base and technology sector. Finally, we will increase the costs of Russia’s war on Ukraine by imposing targeted sanctions on those responsible for war crimes, exercising illegitimate authority in Ukraine, and those standing behind Russia’s engagement in efforts to increase global food insecurity by stealing and exporting Ukrainian grain or otherwise profit illegitimately from the war.’
In furtherance of the ban on gold imports, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) issued a determination that ‘the importation into the United States of gold of Russian Federation origin is prohibited, except to the extent provided by law, or unless licensed or otherwise authorized.’ (The prohibition does not apply to gold that was outside of Russia at the time of its introduction.)
In a 28 June press release, the US Treasury also announced that it was designating ‘70 entities, many of which are critical to the Russian Federation’s defense industrial base, including State Corporation Rostec, the cornerstone of Russia’s defense, industrial, technology, and manufacturing sectors, as well as 29 Russian individuals [with such actions striking] at the heart of Russia’s ability to develop and deploy weapons and technology used for Vladimir Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.’
