On 11 April 2014, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) announced that it had listed as SDNs seven Crimean-based individuals and also one entity, Chernomorneftegaz, for contributing to the situation in Ukraine. The names of the SDNs are listed here.

More recently, President Obama indicated at a press conference on 24 April 2014 that further sanctions targeting Russia had been “teed up”.

President Obama expressed the view that spirit and the letter of the Geneva Agreement had not been complied with, noting the continued occupation by pro-Russian paramilitaries of some government buildings in Ukraine.

The President did not indicate what the additional sanctions would be, nor when they would be applied, but said that this would be a matter of days rather than weeks, if the situation continued to escalate.

He emphasised his preference for a diplomatic solution, and noted the importance of international coordination, which the US was said to be working to facilitate.