US Department of State Building in Washington DCWASHINGTON, Mar 15The U.S. State Department on Monday imposed sanctions on 11 senior Russian defense officials in connection with the events in Ukraine, the department said in a release statement. Today, the State Department continues to lay heavy consequences for this on the leadership of the Russian defense sector,» the State Department said in a statement. It is reported that the US State Department sanctions affected the head of the Russian Guard Viktor Zolotov, the director of the FSMTC Dmitry Shugaev, the general director of Rosoboronexport Alexander Mikheev, as well as eight deputy ministers Defense of the Russian Federation: Alexei Krivoruchko, Timur Ivanov, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Dmitry Bulgakov, Yuri Sadovenko, Nikolai Pankov, Ruslan Tsalikov and Gennady Zhidko. As follows from the statement of the State Department, all property or shares in the property of sanctioned persons in the United States will be blocked . In addition, any organizations that are directly or indirectly owned by persons subject to State Department restrictions are also subject to blocking. Also, US citizens are prohibited from conducting any financial transactions related to their property. Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine on February 24. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces strike only at the military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive. But the occupation of Ukraine is out of the question, the President of Russia stressed.
