The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) today designated Crimea-based separatist leaders Sergey Aksyonov, and Vladimir Konstantinov, leader of Ukranian Choice Viktor Medvedchuk, and former President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13660, which targets persons contributing to the current situation in Ukraine. Aksyonov, Konstantinov, Medvedchuk, and Yanukovych are being designated for their role in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine. They are also being designated for their role in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine. Medvedchuk is also being designated because he has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support to Yanukovych and because he is a leader of an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine and actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine. Viktor Medvedchuk is the leader of Ukrainian Choice, a group through which he has been stirring conflict in Kherson, a province just north of Crimea, through advertising campaigns designed to pit supporters and foes of Russia’s attempt to annex Crimea against one another. A long-time proxy and close personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he acted as a liaison between Yanukovych and Putin. Medvedchuk and Andriy Kluyev, the former Secretary of National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, were involved in the development of the scenario that led to clashes outside the Presidential Administration in Kyiv on December 1, 2013.
Executive Order 13660 of March 6, 2014 Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine
Regime
OFAC country specific
Target State
Russia
Measures
Blocking Property, Suspending Entry
Official Information
E.O. 13660. On March 6, 2014, the President, invoking the authority of, inter alia, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701et seq.) (IEEPA), issued E.O. 13660. In E.O. 13660, the President determined that the actions and policies of persons, including persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine, that undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets, constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and declared a national emergency to deal with that threat.
Section 1(a) of E.O. 13660 blocks, with certain exceptions, all property and interests in property that are in the United States, that come within the United States, or that are or come within the possession or control of any U.S. person, of any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State to, among other things, be responsible for or complicit in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine or threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine.
