The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on four Ukrainian citizens accused of cooperating with Russia to destabilize the country.
Among the Ukrainians subject to sanctions are two current members of parliament and two former officials.
The US Treasury Department has stated in support of the decision that they are involved in operations led by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to destroy the Ukrainian government and economy.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, while in Berlin, said the sanctions were aimed at halting Russia’s efforts to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrating Washington’s readiness to crack down on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
The deputies subject to sanctions are Taras Kozak and Oleh Voloshin, both of whom represent the pro-Russian party Ukraine’s Choice, led by Viktor Medveduk.
Medvechik himself has previously been blacklisted by the United States for “his role in undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty in 2014.”
Cozak is accused of using several of his own television channels to overthrow the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The US Treasury Department has also accused him of trying to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.
The other two Ukrainian citizens subject to sanctions are Volodymyr Olyknik and Vladimir Sivkovich.
Olijnik is a former Ukrainian official who has now moved to Russia and is cooperating with Moscow in efforts to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure, the ministry said.
Sivkovich, on the other hand, is a former employee of the Ukrainian security authorities, who is also accused of trying to interfere in the US elections. He is even accused of actively supporting Moscow in 2014, when Russia occupied and annexed the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula, but then invaded the country’s mainland, occupying large areas of the Donbass.
Russia has now concentrated a troop of 100,000 men on Ukraine’s borders, raising fears of a new incursion into the neighborhood.
In December, Moscow issued an ultimatum to the West demanding a halt to NATO’s further expansion to the east and the dismantling of the Alliance’s infrastructure in the so-called new member states, restoring the status quo on 27 May 1997, before NATO’s first enlargement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened that if Moscow does not receive the “security guarantees” he has demanded, he will have to take “military technical measures”.
The United States and other NATO members have stated that these demands are unacceptable and not even negotiable, but have shown readiness to talk about arms control, missile deployment and confidence-building measures.
However, Moscow insists that the Kremlin’s demands are an indivisible package and acceptable unchanged.
Experts say the Kremlin has put itself in a position where any resignation from the Western ultimatum will be seen as a humiliating defeat for Putin, raising fears that he might decide to go to war.
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