US sanctions not only Russia, but North Korea too

– The United States imposed new sanctions on entities and people in Russia and North Korea after Pyongyang’s latest ICBM missile test.

The targeted persons and organisations are accused of “transferring sensitive items to North Korea’s missile programme”, according to a state department statement.

“These measures are part of our ongoing efforts to impede the DPRK’s ability to advance its missile programme and they highlight the negative role Russia plays on the world stage as a proliferator to programmes of concern,” the statement said, using the acronym for North Korea.

The new sanctions were quickly derided by Moscow’s ambassador in Washington Anatoly Antonov, who said: “serial sanctions will not achieve their goals”.

Thursday’s launch was the first time Pyongyang had fired the country’s most powerful missiles at full range since 2017 and it appears to have travelled higher and further than any previous ballistic missile tested by the nuclear-armed nation.

Kim Jong-un personally oversaw the test-firing of a “new type” of ICBM to boost his country’s nuclear deterrent against the US “imperialists”, North Korea’s state media reported yesterday.

In response, the state department said Washington has sanctioned the Russian entities called Ardis Group, PFK Profpodshipnik and Russian national Igor Aleksandrovich Michurin.

It also sanctioned North Korean citizen Ri Sung Chol and a North Korean entity called Second Academy of Natural Science Foreign Affairs Bureau.

The statement did not detail specific allegations. –