The European Union is due to add Sberbank, Russia's biggest bank, and the pro-Kremlin bikers club Night Wolves to its list of individuals and companies under sanctions for supporting Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, says a draft document seen by RFE/RL.
The 48 new additions also include Andrei Kozitsyn, the head of the giant zinc and copper firm UMMC; Sergei Korolyov, the deputy head of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB); as well as commanders and members of Russia's National Guard, actors, politicians, and family members of sanctioned oligarchs.
Kozitsyn is being added to the blacklist because as a leading Russian businessman he is deemed to be "involved in economic sectors providing a substantial source of revenue to the government," the document says.
The inclusion of Sberbank on the sanctions list would freeze its assets in the West and block all its transactions with the exception of financial operations for trade in food and fertilizer, according to an unnamed EU official.
Sberbank has already been excluded from the SWIFT bank-messaging system, seriously impeding its ability to conduct business.
Pavel Yezubov, a cousin of Kremlin-connected billionaire Oleg Deripaska, has also been included on the list. The document says Deripaska, who is already subject to Western sanctions, "has transferred large assets" to Yezubov, including several properties in France and a hotel in Austria.
The list also includes Adam Delimkhanov, a member of Russia's lower chamber of parliament, the State Duma, who according to the document is responsible for "establishing Chechen forces" in eastern Ukraine since March and for leading the siege on the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol.
Delimkhanov "has personally been involved in preparing the attacks since the beginning of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," the document says.
The new additions, expected to be adopted on July 20, would bring the total number of individuals listed by the EU over the war in Ukraine to 1,229 and would increase to 110 the number of listed companies.
