On June 12, 2024, local time, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury OFAC issued a bulletin imposing sanctions on more than 300 individuals and entities involving overseas branches of Russian financial institutions, including VTB Shanghai and VTB Hong Kong. As a result of this executive order, banks in third countries will be reluctant to deal with high-risk Russian clients. This time it is actually a significant expansion of the secondary sanctions program against Russia.

About 2/3 of the new sanctions list this time are entities, including IT and aviation related companies, vehicle manufacturers and machine builders, etc., to discourage foreign companies from assisting Russia in circumventing Western sanctions. After several rounds of sanctions, the number of sanctioned entities in Russia has increased to more than 4,500.

On June 24, local time, the Council of the European Union issued a statement on its official website, officially announcing the 14th round of sanctions against Russia. In this round of sanctions, the EU will prohibit reloading services in the EU for Russian liquefied natural gas transiting to third countries, including ship-to-ship transshipment and ship-to-shore transshipment, as well as reloading operations. The EU will also prohibit new investments in Russia, as well as the supply of goods, technology and services for LNG projects under construction, such as the Arctic LNG 2 project and the Murmansk LNG project. The EU prohibits operators from using the Russian-developed SPFS financial information service system within or outside the country.