DEFROSTING ASSETS

Trump’s Treasury Drops Sanctions on Putin Henchmen

The move by the Department of the Treasury on Friday came with little fanfare.

The Trump administration dropped economic sanctions against two foreign executives tied to the Russian government and its war in Ukraine.

The Department of the Treasury‘s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Friday announced that it was removing sanction designations it had placed on Vladimir Dmitriev and Frederic Pierre Villa. The treasury previously blocked the assets of both, who have profited from the Kremlin’s military machine.

Villa, an Italian-Swiss national, is linked to an effort at finding sensitive Western technology for Moscow’s intelligence services and soldiers, according to the Treasury Department.

The U.S. government sanctioned Villa in 2023 after learning of his involvement in a network of European companies working on behalf of Russia to get armament packages and even equipment for nuclear weapons laboratories.

Dmitriev was sanctioned in 2022. He serves as an executive at Gazprombank, Russia’s third-largest bank and a key source of funding for Russia’s military effort in Ukraine. The bank, which is still a sanctioned company, also services the natural gas company Gazprom.

Dmitriev and Villa were originally sanctioned under the authority of a Biden-era executive order targeting people and organizations that help the Russian government do harm abroad.

The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) routinely adds and removes names from its sanctioned persons list, often without reflecting a larger policy shift.

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Dmitriev and Villa have a documented history of being in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s orbit. Putin personally appointed Dmitriev to chair the state development corporation, VEB.RF.

More than 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the war, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

After the Trump administration moved to lift sanctions on Dmitriev and Villa, both men regained the ability to move money and conduct business through the U.S. financial system.

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In addition to the two businessmen, the White House dropped sanctions against Andriy Portnov, a pro-Russian political operative in Ukraine who was assassinated last year in Madrid.

The Daily Beast contacted the Department of the Treasury and the White House for comment.

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This is the latest instance of the Trump administration offering financial relief to Russian interests as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran sends shocks through the global economy. Earlier this month, the White House eased sanctions on Russian oil.

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Since the Strait of Hormuz closed as a result of the war, the price of crude has broken $100 a barrel. As a result, gas prices in the U.S. have climbed, jumping more than 30 percent in some parts of the country, further feeding anti-war sentiment.

Recent polling from Fox News found that a majority of Americans oppose the U.S. military action in Iran.

Democrats in Washington criticized the move to drop sanctions, calling Trump’s decision a “huge financial boost” to Russian President Vladimir Putin and “the means to continue his bloody war in Ukraine.”

In the meantime, a senior European official told the Guardian that Russia is providing intelligence to the Iranian regime, including targeting information on U.S. forces.

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