
The Polish authorities has introduced sanctions towards 50 Russian and Belarusian people and entities – including to measures already imposed by the EU – in an try to curb the outflow of billions of zloty from Poland to Russia.
These on the checklist embody a lot of oligarchs – amongst them billionaires Oleg Deripaska and Mikhail Fridman – in addition to state fuel agency Gazprom. They may face measures such because the freezing of monetary belongings, exclusion from participation in public tenders, and a ban on entry to Poland.
One of many people affected is Viatcheslav Kantor, a businessman who not directly owns an nearly 20% stake in Grupa Azoty, a big chemical compounds producer partly owned by the Polish state.
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“The Polish sanctions checklist is a complement to the EU checklist,” mentioned inside minister Mariusz Kamiński. “It applies to Russian entities and oligarchs with actual pursuits in our nation.”
In addition to Gazprom, this contains entitles that beforehand imported coal from Russia and Donbas, together with KTK Polska and Suek Polska, whose efficient house owners, Sait-Salam Gutseriev and Andrey Melnichenko, are additionally on the checklist.
Entities and people linked to Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus, comparable to Beloil Poland, are additionally included.
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Deputy inside minister Maciej Wąsik mentioned that the 18 largest companies included on the brand new sanctions checklist have transferred over 6 billion zloty (€1.29 billion) to Russia within the final two years. He famous that anybody who now violates the sanctions may be fined as much as 20 million zloty, reviews the Polish Press Company (PAP).
Kamiński mentioned that additional entities could be added to the checklist in future, however famous that “many cover behind varied corporations registered in tax havens”, making it extra time consuming to determine them.
Powers to create a sanctions checklist have been established by a regulation launched earlier this month, which additionally banned the import of coal from Russia and prohibited symbols selling Russian aggression towards Ukraine, such because the “Z” emblem.
For extra on Poland’s new regulation introducing sanctions towards Russia and Russian-linked people and entities, which was signed by President @AndrzejDuda final night time, see our report from final week https://t.co/RJtLOEiqZs
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 15, 2022
Major picture credit score: MSWiA (beneath CC BY 3.0 PL)
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a variety of publications, together with Overseas Coverage, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.