Russian payment system MIR has been sanctioned

The Russian payment system MIR has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, in a tightening of sanctions against this country.

This Friday, February 23, the Russian payment system MIR has been sanctioned and the United States has included it in a salvo of sanctions against more than 500 individuals and organizations.

This is the largest wave of sanctions since the war in Ukraine began two years ago.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) explained that the sanctions seek to target Russia’s core financial infrastructure and to that end sanction the operator of the Mir National Payment System, as well as Russian banks, investment firms and financial technology companies.

 “To deny Russia the resources necessary to support its brutal war against Ukraine, Treasury is designating targets that include important financial infrastructure gear,” reported the Department, which also targeted more than two dozen sanctions evaders in other countries.

President Joe Biden assured through a statement, referring to the wave of sanctions, that “if Putin does not pay the price for the death and destruction he causes, it will continue”.

In addition to the Russian payment system MIR being sanctioned, three Russian officials are on the list for their involvement in the death of the opposition leader, the State Department announced.

Companies from 26 states and nationals from 11 countries, including China and Germany, are among the more than 500 individuals and organizations sanctioned for fueling the Russian war machine or helping the government circumvent international sanctions.

Read more: ¿What did Joe Biden say to Vladimir Putin?.

Sanctioned individuals on the rise: Russian payment system MIR has been sanctioned.

This brings to more than 4,000 the entities and individuals sanctioned by Washington since the start of the war.

The Commerce Department has added more than 90 companies to its blacklist.

“To deny Russia the resources necessary to support its brutal war against Ukraine, Treasury designates targets that include a major cog in Russia’s financial infrastructure,” the Treasury Department reported.

The Russian payment system MIR has been sanctioned and would mean a roadblock in many negotiations, in addition to being the payment system for many Russian officials abroad.

Countries such as Venezuela have been implementing the acceptance of payment through the MIR card.

The Russian MIR payment system has been sanctioned, but let’s remember that its development “has allowed Russia to build a financial infrastructure that allows it to circumvent sanctions and rebuild broken ties with the international financial system”, said the Treasury Department in a statement.

The MIR system cards

The Mir cards, developed in 2015 in response to Western sanctions following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, allow Russians to make payments and withdraw money in certain foreign countries.

“If Putin does not pay the price for the death and destruction (he causes), it will continue,” U.S. President Joe Biden warned in a statement given on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine.

Biden cited in his statement “more than 500 new sanctions” against “individuals linked to Navalni’s imprisonment” and against “financial sector, defense industry, supply networks and sanctions evaders on multiple continents.”