Russia

Stay current on Russian activities, sanctions programs, and global policies amidst its ongoing war on Ukraine with in-depth analyses and insights into the intricate dynamics shaping Russia’s economic landscape and activities.

Russia: Slew of Sanctions

Explore the highlights from our most recent webinar about Russia sanctions. What happened in 2024, how has the regulatory atmosphere changed, and how will the sanctions environment evolve in 2025?

Walking the Sanctions Tightrope

In today’s fast-evolving regulatory landscape, sanctions compliance can feel like an uphill battle. This guide explores the key challenges compliance officers face—ranging from multi-jurisdictional rules to cryptocurrency complexities—and offers practical tips to stay ahead.

Examining Evasion

Explore three recent examples with Russia, Iran, and North Korea, which represent some of the most common methods illicit actors have embraced to evade sanctions. Understanding them is an important starting point for private sector firms in assessing and responding to their exposure.

Biden Takes Final Shot at Russia’s Energy

The Biden administration on January 10, 2025, imposed the most severe sanctions on Russia’s energy sector since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. What should financial institutions and other firms know about these new designations, and how can they mitigate their risks?

2024’s Top 10 Major Developments

Explore the highlights from our recent webinar including an overview of the current illicit finance landscape, major events in 2024 as well as noted possible future developments as the global illicit finance regime grows and evolves.

Sanctions in 2024: Global Pressure Points in the UN, U.S., EU, and UK

In 2024, the UN, U.S., EU, and UK ramped up sanctions targeting Russia, Iran, and conflict zones, focusing on critical sectors like energy, defense, and technology. In this article, we explore these coordinated efforts aimed at weakening adversarial regimes while navigating complex compliance and humanitarian challenges.

Targeting Russia’s IT Dependencies

Delve into the recent determination issued by OFAC, which imposes significant additional restrictions on the provision to Russia of IT consultancy and design services as well as IT support and cloud-based services of enterprise management and design and manufacturing software. Multinational tech corporations, financial institutions, and other companies still operating in Russia will likely require licenses to continue operating there.

OFAC’s Compliance Guidance in Action

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) five years ago published its Framework for OFAC Compliance Commitments. This guidance remains the most comprehensive articulation of OFAC’s compliance expectations to date. Although it notably stopped short of mandating a sanctions compliance program (SCP), recent enforcement actions demonstrate the implications of not having an SCP in place.

Russian Use of Crypto for Sanctions Evasion on the Rise

Experts agree there isn't enough liquidity in the virtual assets space to enable largescale sanctions evasion by Moscow, but sanctioned individuals and entities have used virtual currencies—most notably Tether—to access the global financial system and pay for restricted goods and technologies. Explore recent designations, how cryptocurrencies and other virtual assets are being leveraged to facilitate evasion as well as risk mitigation strategies for financial institutions in our latest article.

Counterproliferation Finance Detection and Deterrence – What Can Financial Institutions Do?

The U.S. Treasury recently identified proliferation networks operating on behalf of Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, and Pakistan as threats to U.S. national security. These networks exploited the U.S. financial system to finance the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including financing to procure WMD components and raising revenues to support efforts by these state actors to advance their WMD activities.