US plans new sanctions on Russia over Iranian drones and China for illegal fishing & Tibet

The US is set to levy fresh sanctions against Russia and China, actions that include targeting Russia’s deployment of Iranian drones in Ukraine, alleged human-rights abuse by both nations and Beijing’s support of alleged illegal fishing in the Pacific, according to officials familiar with the matter, as reported by Wall Street Journal. The sanctions are expected to be imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, named after a whistleblower who died in a Moscow jail after accusing officials of corruption. Defending its action, the US said that they were using those powers to sanction high-profile government, military and business officials accused of human-rights abuses and corruption, and said it aims to hold them accountable and deter others.

The sanctions will freeze any assets the targets have within US jurisdiction, prevent their travel to the U.S. and prohibit business dealings with them. For government and business officials, the actions can complicate their international travel and financing. By cutting companies’ access to the world’s largest markets, the sanctions can roil their operations and in some cases force their dissolution, reported the WSJ. The targets include officials allegedly responsible for Russia’s filtration camps for Ukrainians caught behind the front, where groups such as Human Rights Watch have alleged the military has tortured citizens and committed other war crimes. 

US sanctions proposed on China

The Biden administration is set to sanction around 170 largely Chinese entities allegedly involved in illegal fishing throughout the Pacific, which Western officials say Beijing has used not only to feed the world’s largest population, but also to help the Communist government expand its maritime power through the establishment of a network of ports outside of China. One US official said sanctions had also been drafted to list Chinese entities allegedly involved in human-rights abuses against Tibetans. Beijing has used its security forces as part of an effort to control the group, human-rights groups say, harassing suspected followers of Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. China and Russia have long been the subject of a host of US sanctions as US attempts to put pressure against Moscow’s war in Ukraine and for Beijing’s treatment of political opposition in Hong Kong.

This comes immediately after the top United Nations human rights official Volker Turk said Friday that his office will continue reaching out to Beijing about allegations of abuse in China. The office of former U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet published a report in August stating that China’s detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. Bachelet’s successor, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, called the report “a very important one” that “highlighted very serious human rights concerns.”

US sanctions proposed on Russia 

The US administration plans to hit several Russia defence industry entities tied to the transfer of Iranian military drones Moscow has been using to deadly effect in attacking Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, according to the officials. By penalizing Russia for its Iranian drone supplies, the US says it aims to disrupt the deployment of a weapon that Ukrainians say has terrorized the population and is manufactured by Tehran’s US-sanctioned weapons program, as reported by WSJ. In a personal attack to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the US is preparing sanctions against Russia’s central election commission, which presides over an election system that Western officials broadly condemn as fraudulent and that has ensured Putin control of the country for nearly a quarter-century.