Ukraine urges US to sanction all Russian banks – Bloomberg

Kiev reportedly wants Washington to add a couple of banks per week to its list of blacklisted financial institutions

Ukraine is calling on President Joe Biden’s administration to sanction all private Russian banks, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing Kiev’s envoy to Washington Oksana Markarova.

She told the media outlet that President Vladimir Zelensky’s government wants the US to add a couple of banks per week to its list of sanctioned financial institutions. The ambassador noted that she’s conveyed the request to the US Treasury Department.

“Sanctions are as important as weapons,” Markarova, a former finance minister, said in the interview, adding that any Russian bank is a legitimate sanctions target.

“As soon as one bank is sanctioned, some other private bank suddenly becomes a financier of the industry or military,” she claimed, adding that she’s also pushing for the State Department to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

The Ukrainian envoy went on to state, that while a couple of banks could be spared for certain purposes, “everything else should be sanctioned, because all of them are engaged in financing their terror machine that is conducting war.”

READ MORE: EU approves new round of sanctions

The US, along with the UK, EU and others have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia’s business and political spheres since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. The restrictions particularly targeted Russia’s largest financial institutions, Sberbank and VTB, and other top banks, as well as hundreds of individuals including President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

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