Biden vows to ‘ratchet up the pain’ on Putin with new Russia sanctions – US politics

The US has indicted a Russian oligarch it says is responsible for spreading the Kremlin’s misinformation around the world, as well as seizing a megayacht belonging to another of Vladimir Putin’s allies, and millions of dollars in assets they held, as the war in Ukraine rages on.

US attorney general Merrick Garland made the announcements today at a press conference at the justice department to announce actions “to prosecute criminal Russian activity.”

He also said that the US and its allies has broken up a massive attempted malware attack that Russia intended to unleash internationally, causing unprecedented disruption of the internet and causing tens of billions of dollars in damages globally.

“Our message to those who continue to enable the Russian regime through their criminal conduct is this: It does not matter how far you sail your yacht. It does not matter how well you conceal your assets. It does not matter how cleverly you write your malware or hide your online activity. The justice department will use every available tool to find you, disrupt your plots and hold you accountable,” Garland said.

The conspiracy charges have been filed against the Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, who was previously the subject of US sanctions for spreading Russian misinformation.

Garland said he is “one of the main sources of financing for Russians promoting separatism in Crimea and for providing material support for the so called Donetsk People’s Republic.

“After being sanctioned by the US, Malofeyev attempted to evade the sanctions by using co-conspirators to surreptitiously acquire and run media outlets across Europe.”

Garland said the US had seized millions of dollars from an account at a US financial institution which the indictment alleges constitutes proceeds traceable to Malofeyev’s sanctions violations.

Meanwhile, the $90m megayacht Tango, belonging to the Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, a close ally of Putin, was seized in Mallorca on Monday. Vekselberg was sanctioned in 2018 for money laundering, and again last month after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The malware attack was targeted largely at small businesses with an intention to spreading a massive, attempted denial of service attack intended to disrupt the internet internationally and cause at least $10bn in damages.

“The global botnet [was] controlled by the Russian military intelligence agency, commonly known as the GRU,” Garland said, noting the Russian government had recently used similar infrastructure to attack Ukrainian targets.

“Fortunately, we were able to disrupt this botnet before it could be used. Thanks to our close work with international partners, we were able to detect the infection of thousands of network hardware devices. We are then able to disable the GRU’s control over those devices before the botnet could be weaponized,” he said.