The owner of a port facility in southern Turkey has landed on the US blacklist over its alleged connections to a Russian oligarch.
MMK Turkey, also known as MMK Metalurji Port, was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department on Tuesday for its connections to Viktor Filippovich Rashnikov, the head of Russian iron and steel giant MMK.
The company owns two steel-producing plants and a port in Hatay, north of Iskenderun.
“The Treasury Department will use every tool at our disposal to make sure that Russian elites and the Kremlin’s enablers are held accountable for their complicity in a war that has cost countless lives,” said US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen.
“Together with our allies, the United States will also continue to choke off revenue and equipment underpinning Russia’s unprovoked war in Ukraine.”
MMK Turkey has been approached for comment.
The US said MMK was majority owned by Rashnikov, one of the world’s largest steel producers and among Russia’s biggest taxpayers.
Rashnikov has already been sanctioned by Australia, Canada, the European Union, Switzerland and the UK.
His company, formally known as Publichnoe Aktsionernoe Obschestvo Magnitogorskiy Metallurgicheskiy Kombinat, was also blacklisted, as was its financial arm MMK-Finans.
In total, 36 companies, 13 people and two yachts were sanctioned on Monday as the US, alongside the rest of the developed world, looks to crack down on Russia in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.
One of the yachts sanctioned was the 2,159-gt Alfa Nero (built 2007) for its connection to Andrey Andreevich Guryev, formerly chief executive of PhosAgro and current owner of Dzhi AI Invest. Both Guryev and Dzhi were among those sanctioned.
The US said the ship had turned off its AIS.
The other is the 1,620-gt Axioma (built 2013) for its connection to Dmitry Pumpyanskiy, a former oil and gas executive who was previously sanctioned.
The recent round of sanctions against Russia follows a round of blacklistings levied on Monday against Iranian oil trading networks.
