US Set To Impose Sanctions On Russian Imperial Movement - Counterterror Coordinator

US Set to Impose Sanctions on Russian Imperial Movement - Counterterror Coordinator

The United States on Monday will unveil new sanctions against an ultranationalist group in Russia accused of violent white supremacism, the State Department's counter-terrorism coordinator Ambassador Nathan Sales and other officials told the New York Times

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th April, 2020) The United States on Monday will unveil new sanctions against an ultranationalist group in Russia accused of violent white supremacism, the State Department's counter-terrorism coordinator Ambassador Nathan Sales and other officials told the New York Times.

The State Department will later in the day formally designate the Russian Imperial Movement as a terrorist organization, allowing the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to block any US property or assets belonging to the group, the officials said.

"These designations are unprecedented," Sales told the New York Times. "This is the first time the United States has ever designated white supremacists as terrorists, and this illustrates how seriously this administration takes the white supremacist terrorist threat. We are doing things no previous administration has done to counter this threat."

The United States will also designate three of the group's leaders, Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov, the report said.

Sales alleged that the group runs two facilities in St. Petersburg that offered paramilitary training to white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

US officials said the group is not considered to be sponsored by the Russian government, the report added.

The designation would help the FBI to open special investigations against Americans who appear to have links with the group, it added.

The new sanctions come as the FBI and other US Federal authorities prioritize the fight against violent white nationalists and neo-Nazi extremism, the report said.