Venezuela crisis: US blacklists Russian oil firm for helping Maduro
What are the latest US sanctions?
The sanctions were announced by the US treasury on Tuesday.
“Rosneft Trading SA and its president brokered the sale and transport of Venezuelan crude oil,” Trade Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
“The United States is determined to prevent the looting of Venezuela’s oil assets by the corrupt Maduro regime,” he added.
The statement said that the US sanctions “need not be permanent and are intended to change behaviour”.
“The United States has made it clear that we will consider lifting sanctions for those who take concrete, meaningful, and verifiable actions to support democratic order in Venezuela,” the statement said.
Rosneft and Rosneft Trading SA
were already the subject of US restrictions relating to Russia’s involvement in the conflict in Ukraine that erupted in 2014.
What’s the Russian response?
Neither Rosneft nor its trading arm have so far publicly spoken on the issue.
But the Russian foreign ministry condemned the sanctions.
BBC News