Canada government imposes new sanctions, ban on Russian luxury goods News
Canada government imposes new sanctions, ban on Russian luxury goods

The Canadian government announced new sanctions against Russia Friday, in addition to the sanctions already in place. According to Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the new sanctions will add 14 individuals with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin to the individual sanctions list. The new sanctions will also cover luxury goods such as “alcoholic beverages, tobacco, some textile products and sportswear, footwear, luxury clothing and accessories, jewelry, kitchenware, and art.”

The new sanctions come days after the last round of sanctions went into effect on May 18. The previous sanctions included familiar names of Russian Oligarchs, such as Farkhad Akhmedov, a Russian commodities trader, Igor Kesaev, a retail and tobacco investor, and David Davidovich, business partner of Roman Abramovich, a previously sanctioned oil and steel magnate. Each of the sanctioned businesspeople are reported to have fortunes upwards of USD $1 billion and close ties to the Kremlin.

Some of the most impactful recent additions to the sanctions list are billionaire Gleb Frank and the addition of seafood as a banned commodity. Frank is the founder of two of the largest seafood companies in Europe, the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) and Russian Crab (RC). After sanctions from both Canada and the US, Frank sold his shares in both companies in an attempt to shield them from direct sanctions. Both RFC and RC export large quantities of pollock and crab throughout the globe, with North America being a key recipient.

The Canadian government, when implementing the new sanctions, cited the need to keep up with other countries such as the US and the UK.