Russia slaps sanctions on over 30 EU, US and Singapore energy firms

RUSSIA has imposed sanctions on more than 30 EU, US and Singapore energy companies in a retaliatory move following Western penalties over Ukraine, a government decree said Wednesday. The Russian government’s list contains 31 companies, most of which belong to the Gazprom Germania group of subsidiaries of Russian energy giant Gazprom. The Singapore company named in the list is Gazprom Marketing & Trading Singapore Pte Ltd. The sanctions also affect Poland’s EuRoPol GAZ S.A., the owner of the Polish part of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline. The sanctions include a ban on transactions and the entry into Russian ports of vessels linked to the affected companies. Unprecedented in their scale and speed, Western sanctions against Moscow have ranged from freezing assets to export bans on strategic products like semiconductors and financial sanctions. AFP