The US Treasury Department said yesterday that the United States and its allies have frozen $330 billion in Russian assets since the conflict in Ukraine began.
Specifically, the Western Allies froze $30 billion in assets owned by the Russian wealthy or sanctioned elite and “frozen” about $300 billion from the Russian Central Bank, according to a statement released by the Western Allies Action Group, which is in charge of tracking Russian elite assets.
At least five luxury yachts and properties owned or controlled by Russian citizens were also seized and sanctioned.
“Together we will ensure that sanctions continue to incur heavy costs for Russia for its unjustified and protracted aggression against Ukraine,” the statement said.
On the first day of their summit in Germany, G7 leaders announced a ban on freshly mined gold in Russia to prevent Moscow and the country’s ruling minority from using the precious metal to circumvent sanctions.
Here, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said yesterday that the NATO summit in Madrid confirms the alliance’s “hostility” towards Russia, calling its expansion to Finland and Sweden a “largely destabilizing” step.
“The Madrid summit reinforces the course of aggressive deterrence that follows the alliance towards Russia,” he added to Russian news agencies.
Militarily, US President Joe Biden announced yesterday in Madrid that his country will “strengthen its military presence in Europe” so that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) can “respond to threats from all directions and in all areas: on land, in air and sea.”
During the NATO summit, which he called “printed history,” he said that the US military presence and military capabilities would be strengthened in Spain, Poland, Romania, the Baltic states, Britain, Germany and Italy.
“We are on time” and “we are proving that NATO is needed more than ever,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said.
At length, Biden recalled that the United States had already deployed “20,000 additional troops to Europe this year to bolster our ranks in response to Russia’s aggressive moves.”
He stressed that Washington will increase the number of its destroyers at the Rota naval base in Spain to six instead of the previous four.
In Poland, Washington will establish a “Permanent General Headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Corps.”
Biden added: “We will maintain an additional brigade” of a total of five thousand people based in Romania, and we will make “additional deployments to the Baltics.”
“We will send two more squadrons” of F-35 fighters to the United Kingdom and “deploy additional air defense capabilities” in Germany and Italy, he said in a brief press statement.
Biden believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to “make Europe like Finland”, that is, to force the NATO member countries to take a neutral position, historically the position of the Nordic countries, but he is witnessing, against his will, the expansion of the alliance by including additional European countries.
Finland, historically known for its neutrality, and Sweden are preparing to join NATO after overturning a Turkish veto on Tuesday night, with the alliance showing near-perfect unity since the start of the war in Ukraine.
The day before, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday that his country was not “afraid” of US President Joe Biden’s announcement of an increased US military presence in Europe amid acute tensions with Moscow.
NATO Secretary: Russia threatens the “security” of the countries of the “North Atlantic region”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Russia poses a “direct threat” to the security of NATO countries gathered at the summit in Madrid, which seek to strengthen the eastern wing of the alliance in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We will make it clear” — during the summit, which will consider the Alliance roadmap for the first time since 2010 — that Russia poses a direct threat to our security, he said.
Buses and trains will connect Crimea with the south of Ukraine
Yesterday, Ukraine’s pro-Russian authorities announced the opening of a bus and rail link between Moscow-annexed Crimea and the cities of Kherson and Zaporozhye in southern Ukraine.
“From July 1, bus and rail links will connect Crimea with the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions for the first time in eight years,” Sergei Aksyonov, pro-Moscow head of Crimea, said in a telegram.
He added that “Russian Guard units will ensure flight safety.”
