Did US breach its own sanctions by purchasing ventilators from Russia?
In the heat of battle against the coronavirus pandemic, the United States may have violated its own sanctions by purchasing ventilators and other protective gear from Russia, Russian and US media reports have suggested.
‘Footage of the controversial cargo during unloading in New York showed boxes of ventilators made by a subsidiary of Russian tech firm KRET, itself a subsidiary of sanctioned state-run conglomerate Rostec,’ the Moscow Times said in its 3 April edition. ‘Western sanctions block KRET and its subsidiaries from U.S. markets unless the U.S. Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issues a waiver,’ it reported.
OFAC can always issue a specific licence for a transaction involving a sanctioned party, the Treasury Department’s former senior sanctions adviser Brian O’Toole told RBC, a Moscow-based Russian media organisation. ‘But the Trump administration might have not issued any license,’ he was quoted as saying.
O’Toole said Russia’s state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund (‘RDIF’), which is subject to less severe US sanctions, may have stepped in to avoid violating US sanctions. RDIF said it paid half the costs of the Russian supplies after initial confusion over the terms of the deal. ‘This still should be considered a formal violation of sanctions,’ O’Toole was quoted as saying.
The US State Department said it bought the entire planeload of the medical equipment. Russia’s Foreign Ministry later said the US had paid for half the cargo, while Russia donated the other half.
Meanwhile, the US State Department said the ventilators and protective gear were purchased following a telephone call between President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
‘Both countries have provided humanitarian assistance to each other in times of crisis in the past and will no doubt do so again in the future. This is a time to work together to overcome a common enemy that threatens the lives of all of us,’ the State Department said.
Both Rostec and KRET have been sanctioned by the US government since 2014. Rostec’s chief executive officers are also included on the blacklist.
https://www.rbc.ru/politics/03/04/2020/5e8617ef9a794717ba5653ff
