The Ukrainian government listed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and two other members of his government on a list of hundreds of individuals and legal entities facing new sanctions.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council announced a wave of new sanctions on Saturday. Ukrainska Pravda reported the total list of sanctions includes targets 300 individuals, including three Syrian individuals: Assad, Syrian Prime Minister Hussein Arnous and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.
The sanctions call for blocking Assad’s assets, banning his transfers of funds out of banks in Ukraine, and suspending his ownership stakes in financial dealings within Ukraine for 10 years.
The Assad government has earned the ire of the Ukrainian government after it supported the independent status of the breakaway Ukrainian territories of Luhansk and Donetsk last June. Ukraine suspended its diplomatic ties with Syria over the Assad government’s support for the Luhansk and Donetsk breakaway effort.
Ties between Ukraine and Syria were further strained this week, when Assad reiterated his support for the Russian military campaign in Ukraine. In comments shared by the Russian state media outlet, TASS, Assad described the Russian campaign in Ukraine as an effort to fight Nazis.
Syria and Russia have had close diplomatic ties for decades. Those ties have deepened as the Russian military has fought alongside the Syrian government in the long-running Syrian Civil War.
Most of the remaining individuals targeted in the new Ukrainian sanctions are citizens of Russia. One of the sanctioned individuals, Victor Slobolinsky, is a dual citizen of Russia and Ukraine.
The new Ukrainian sanctions targeted another 141 legal entities. Among those sanctioned are two entities in Russian-controlled Crimea: the Institute of Marine Instrumentation and Robotics and the Yevpatoriia Aircraft Repair Plant.
