The Bass, Berry & Sims international trade team is actively monitoring the situation in Russia and Ukraine and providing real-time advice to clients on managing the situation. This post summarizes new U.S. sanctions and export restrictions as of April 18. This post supplements our previous summaries, which are available by following the links at the end of this blog post.

President Biden Extends National Emergency under Executive Order 14024

On April 13, President Biden extended the national emergency declared under Executive Order (EO) 14024 for an additional year due to the harmful foreign activities of the Russian government. EO 14024, as expanded by EOs 14039, 14066, 14068, and 14071, provides the overarching authorization for the U.S. government to take the actions described in our updates.

Commerce Adds to List of Russian-Owned/Operated and Belarusian-Owned/Operated Aircraft in Violation of the EAR

On April 14, the U.S. Commerce Department, Bureau of Industry & Security (BIS) updated its growing list of aircraft that have flown into Russia and/or Belarus in apparent violation of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). BIS issued the initial list on March 18 and an updated list on March 30.

BIS previously removed license exceptions for aircraft registered in, owned, controlled by, or under charter or lease by Russia, Belarus, or nationals of Russia or Belarus. Any aircraft manufactured in the United States, or an aircraft manufactured outside the United States that contains more than 25% U.S.-origin controlled content, is subject to a license requirement if destined for Belarus or Russia.

The April 14 update includes, for the first time, Belarusian-owned/operated aircraft, bringing the current total to 153 aircraft, of which 146 are Russian-owned/operated. Tail numbers of 32 aircraft previously identified have been updated to reflect purported re-registration in Russia as well.

BIS also removed two planes that the U.S. government has authorized to leave Russia—VQ-BTK (Azur Air) and VP-BJR (Nordwind). In its March 30 press release, BIS summarized the two-pronged process for seeking de-listing of an aircraft. More information is available in our April 1 post.

OFAC Issues General License 26

On April 12, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License (GL) 26, which permits all transactions ordinarily incident and necessary to the wind-down of transactions involving Joint Stock Company SB Sberbank Kazakhstan or Sberbank Europe AG (and any entity in which either owns 50% or more interest) through July 12, 2022. OFAC previously designated Sberbank as a prohibited party on April 6.

GL 26 does not permit transactions prohibited by Directive 2, which requires all U.S. financial institutions to close any Sberbank correspondent or payable-through account and to reject any future transaction involving Sberbank or any of its foreign financial institution subsidiaries within 30 days of designation, and Directive 4, which requires a license for any transaction involving the Central Bank of Russia, the National Wealth Fund of the Russian Federation, or the Russian Ministry of Finance, including any transfers to or on behalf of such entities.