Sergey Kusiuk (Kusiuk) was commander of an elite Ukrainian police unit, the Berkut. Ukraine’s Special Investigations Department investigating crimes against activists identified Kusiuk as a leader of an attack on peaceful protesters on November 30, 2013, while in charge of 290 Berkut officers, many of whom took part in the beating of activists. Kusiuk has been named by the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office as an individual who took part in the killings of activists on Kyiv’s Independence Square in February 2014. Kusiuk ordered the destruction of documentation related to the events, and has fled Ukraine and is now in hiding in Moscow, Russia, where he was identified dispersing protesters as part of a Russian riot police unit in June 2017.
On December 23, 2016, the President signed the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Pub. L. 114-328, Title XII, Subtitle F) (the “Act”) into law. The Act authorized the President to impose targeted sanctions on any foreign person the President determines is, among other things, responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, or a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption.
On December 20, 2017, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701-1706) (IEEPA), issued Executive Order 13818 (82 FR 60839, December 26, 2017) (E.O. 13818), effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time on December 21, 2017.
In E.O. 13818, the President determined that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
OFAC is issuing the Global Magnitsky Sanctions Regulations, 31 CFR part 583 (the “Regulations”), to implement the Act and E.O. 13818, pursuant to authorities delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury in E.O. 13818. A copy of E.O. 13818 appears in appendix A to this part.
