by John Helmer, Moscow
@bears_with
At 10 on Monday morning this week, the official White House log shows that President Donald Trump was preparing himself to greet the President of Salvador who was arriving at the White House door in an hour’s time.
But in a tweet Trump composed beforehand, he announced: “The War between Russia and Ukraine is Biden’s war, not mine. I just got here, and for four years during my term, had no problem in preventing it from happening… President Zelenskyy and Crooked Joe Biden did an absolutely horrible job in allowing this travesty to begin. There were so many ways of preventing it from ever starting. But that is the past. Now we have to get it to STOP, AND FAST. SO SAD!”
Trump was falsifying what he had done himself to escalate the war against Russia from 2017 to 2021. He was also concealing the executive order he had signed four days before, on April 10 at 8:45 am. In that paper Trump agreed to the Biden Administration’s charge of “harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation—in particular, efforts to undermine the conduct of free and fair democratic elections and democratic institutions in the United States.” For that reason, Trump agreed to extend Biden’s executive order to continue economic warfighting against Russia, including the threat of new tariffs.
Trump is now hiding what he has just agreed and signed. He has omitted to tweet a record of his agreement with Biden on the Russian enemy. There is also no White House announcement on April 10 of Trump’s order to continue the economic guns firing in the war.
“We did not have any high expectations here in this regard,” the Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov responded, saying as little as possible to expose the Kremlin’s knowledge of Trump’s deceit.
In fact, in Trump’s first term the president added two new laws intended to widen the scope and multiply the number of Russian targets for sanction targets; at the same time, Trump made it more difficult for a successor president to ease or lift his Russia sanctions. Now that Trump is his own successor, he is continuing the Biden war which Obama and Trump had started.
Trump has refused to authorize his appointees at the State Department, Treasury, and National Security Council (NSC) to allow even limited easing of sanctions for the food and fertilizer trade that was under discussion last month in Saudi Arabia as part of the Black Sea “ceasefire” which Trump had discussed on the telephone with President Vladimir Putin.
But there is just one form of sanctions relief which Trump has introduced – this is an indirect benefit to the Russian oligarchs who are already under sanctions designations. It’s not an offer to lift the individual sanctions; it’s a scheme for not prosecuting violations when the Russians find ways to evade the sanctions (or pay bribes in the intermediation). This Trump move is being concealed.
According to the Baker McKenzie law firm of Chicago, “Task Force KleptoCapture, one of the Biden era enforcement initiatives, has been disbanded. This was announced in a memo issued by US Attorney General Pam Bondi on February 5. This was a task force within the US Department of Justice focused on enforcing the sanctions against Russian oligarchs. This was the task force behind many of the high-profile asset seizures that were widely reported in the press, such as luxury yachts.”
But the Russian oligarchs are impatient for direct, open sanctions relief from Trump. For this they are looking to Kirill Dmitriev to negotiate terms with Steven Witkoff; read more here.
So far, however, the yachts and mansions concession is all that Trump and Witkoff have agreed to. Even the YachtBuyer in its report on the superyacht market acknowledges that the asset brokers and oligarch intermediaries are cautious, warning that “any perceived softening on oligarch-linked assets could draw political and legal backlash from Ukraine’s allies, especially in Europe.”
How this is playing out in the courts on both sides of the war can be followed in the legal challenge Oleg Deripaska and his Rusal group of aluminium companies fought and lost late last year in Australia, and in the retaliation they have commenced in the Russian courts last week.
The complex legal argumentation and the Russia-hating government policy which motivates the continuing sanctions to stop worldwide movement of Russian minerals and metals, and the multi-billion dollar retaliation which the Deripaska and the Kremlin are now threatening if the sanctions aren’t lifted, are, as a Russian business source in Dubai puts it, “pushing the accelerator and brake pedal at the same time for Trump, for Witkoff, their business associates, and the government agencies they are trying to run.”
In a new court move in Kaliningrad, revealed by a Moscow newspaper yesterday, Oleg Deripaska, the Russian aluminium oligarch who has been under personal US sanctions since before 2014 – his Rusal companies since 2018 — has begun a retaliatory strike against the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto Corporation, the world’s second largest metals and mining corporation. Deripaska’s method is to retaliate for the sanctions cutting off the alumina supplies he owns in Australia by cutting off the mining company’s raw materials and railway access at its Oyu Tolgoi mine in Mongolia, one of the largest and most profitable copper deposits in the world.
For enlarged view, click on source: https://www.castellum.ai/russia-sanctions-dashboard
In a Washington think tank’s history of the economic war against Russia, “sanctions on Russia increased substantially during the Obama administration compared to the prior rate of designations, primarily in response to Russia’s territorial aggression in Ukraine and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Trump administration continued imposing new sanctions on Russia, albeit at a much lower rate than the preceding Obama administration, which designated 458 entities and individuals with ties to Russia during Obama’s second term compared to 273 under Trump.”
According to the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a military-industrial complex think tank in Washington, “during the Trump administration, the rate of new sanctions on Russia slowed but took on a broader focus, with new sanctions targeting malign cyber activity, election interference, and Russia’s support for countries like North Korea. For example, new cyber sanctions on Russia-linked entities accounted for 69 designations during the Trump administration. The Trump administration issued 273 designations from 2017 through 2020 on Russia-linked individuals and entities, of which 131, or just under 48 percent, were related to Ukraine.”
Following the start of the Special Military Operation in February 2022, the Biden Administration widened and intensified the sanctions war, multiplying the individual Russian designations to 1,522, dwarfing all other nationals, and adding a new executive order – No. 14114 of December 22, 2023. This authorized “sanctions on foreign financial institutions involved in helping Russia evade existing financial restrictions. The sanctions represent the first major effort to employ secondary sanctions against third-party persons assisting Russia since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Although the United States’ use of secondary sanctions has previously caused tensions with allies due to their extraterritorial nature, the United States and its allies are increasingly aligned on the need to use such measures to stem sanctions evasion routes in third-party markets. The EO also allows for the United States to prohibit import of Russian-origin items that have been processed or substantially transformed in third countries, including Russian seafood and diamond products.”
For the US-Israel campaign to attack the Russian diamond industry, read this.
Several hundred Russian individuals and entities were sanctioned on January 15, 2025, five days before Biden’s term expired.
Dated March 18, 2025, a summary of US sanctions against Russia noted the Trump Administration is continuing the economic war against Russia with the same intensity and targets as the Biden Administration. Trump’s executive orders have “not removed or relaxed any of the US sanctions or export controls against Russia…[and] allowed the energy sector sanctions imposed at the end of the Biden Administration on January 10 to go into effect. This included a prohibition on US Persons providing petroleum services to anyone in Russia, which had come with a delayed effective date of February 27. The January 10 measures also included a series of wind-down general licenses that expired on February 27 and March 12.”
In addition, Trump renewed the national emergency for the Ukraine war which has been the legal foundation for the start of the US economic war, and the implementation of sanctions against Russia since the Obama Administration in 2014. “As reported in the Federal Register on February 27, President Trump continued the national emergency with respect to Ukraine for another year, until March 6, 2026. This national emergency was first declared by President Obama in 2014 to address threats to the democracy and sovereignty of Ukraine. This national emergency underpins a large number of sanctions against individuals and entities in Russia under Executive Order 13662 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. (Most of the post-2022 sanctions against Russia were based on a different national emergency declared by President Biden in 2021 in Executive Order 14024. However, in its final weeks, the outgoing Biden Administration imposed a number of sanctions under both EO 14024 and EO 13662 in an attempt to make the sanctions more difficult to remove later.”
Source: https://www.yachtbuyer.com/en/news/us-disbands-task-force-kleptocapture
According to the YachtBuyer, “Task Force KleptoCapture played a critical role in some of the most high-profile superyacht seizures in recent years. The unit was instrumental in: [1] seizing Amadea, a $325 million, 106-meter Lürssen superyacht linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov in Fiji in 2022. The yacht was later sailed to San Diego under U.S. control, where it remains. [2] Impounding Tango, a 77-meter Feadship yacht belonging to Viktor Vekselberg, at a marina in Palma de Mallorca, Spain in 2022. The U.S. accused Vekselberg of using shell companies to evade sanctions. [3] Blocking the movements of Crescent [owned by Igor Sechin] and Madame Gu [Andrei Skoch], two Lürssen-built mega-yachts associated with Russian elites, preventing them from leaving foreign ports…Although the DOJ has confirmed that ongoing cases will continue, critics argue that without a centralized task force, the process may slow down or lose momentum. The U.S. has yet to auction or repurpose any of the seized yachts, leading to legal disputes over ownership and asset disposal. Some industry insiders believe that sanctioned oligarchs may see an opportunity to reclaim their detained yachts through lengthy legal battles, particularly in European courts, where decisions on asset seizures have been mixed…The disbandment of Task Force KleptoCapture could signal a broader policy shift away from aggressive sanctions enforcement, potentially allowing Russian yacht owners more flexibility in moving and maintaining their assets…As ongoing cases unfold, the yachting world will be watching closely to see whether the seized superyachts remain under U.S. control or if legal challenges pave the way for their return to sanctioned owners.”
In the three-year long challenge to the legality of Australian government sanctions seizing control of Rusal-owned alumina and transferring it to its joint-venture partner, the Anglo-Australian Rio Tinto company, Rusal’s lawyers have argued that the shareholdings in Rusal of Deripaska and his oligarch partners fall below the 50% US threshold for sanctions targets.
Rusal has also said it was ready to ship its alumina to third parties not involved in the Ukraine war, avoiding the Russian aluminium refineries which had been their destination before the war. Rusal, the court was told, “is prepared to give a binding undertaking, which reflects these matters, if this would give comfort to QAL. In light of these matters, it is clear that any supply of alumina to ABC [Alumina and Bauxite Company Ltd., Rusal subsidiary] by QAL [Queensland Alumina Ltd., Rio Tinto-controlled joint venture] will not be a sanctioned supply because: (a) the alumina will not directly or indirectly as a result of that supply be transferred to Russia or for use in Russia; (b) as a direct or indirect result of that supply, the supply is not for the benefit of Russia.”
In March 2022, when officials in Canberra announced they were introducing sanctions on Rusal’s alumina, there were two vessels at berth in Gladstone, waiting to be loaded with alumina for shipment to Russia. To release the vessels and avoid the sanctions, Rusal arranged to divert the cargoes to Qingdao in China, where the alumina could be stored until negotiations for sale could be arranged with “customers in Europe, India and the Middle East.”
The Australian government ordered Rio Tinto officials in Gladstone to stop the loading.
Left: the QAL Ltd. alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland.
Right, Oleg Deripaska. For the history of Deripaska in Australian politics, start here. There is a parallel history of rivalry between Deripaska and Rio Tinto in Guinea, the west African bauxite and alumina source; see https://johnhelmer.net/.
At stake in the case was the Australian Autonomous Sanctions Act of 2011. Unnoticed when a Labor Party government passed it through parliament at the time, the statute effectively subordinates all Australia’s export industries to US government directives. The exports under US control include iron ore, coal, gas, gold, wheat, bauxite, alumina and aluminium.
Although the statute’s title is “Autonomous Sanctions Act”, in practice it means the Subordinate Sanctions Act. According to section 3, the Australian government may impose sanctions at American or other allied direction when there are “matters that are of international concern in relation to one or more particular foreign countries…[including] one or more of the following… threats to international peace and security…malicious cyber activity…serious violations or serious abuses of human rights…activities undermining good governance or the rule of law, including serious corruption.”
Section 6 of the Act removed parliament from having to review and decide when a foreign country posed any of these threats. Instead, an unspecified minister was empowered “by legislative instrument [to] specify a provision of a law of the Commonwealth as a sanction law” and “specify a provision in relation to particular circumstances.” This vagueness meant a secret process by local officials resulting in unilateral issuance of regulations, without the legal requirement of compensation, enforced by US agreement that the action “will facilitate the conduct of Australia’s relations with other countries or with entities or persons outside Australia.”
Section 7 of the Act allowed extra-territorial jurisdiction; this meant that the government in Canberra, acting on US order, could impose sanctions and penalties on Australian companies mining, refining and trading in other countries and according to their laws.
Last November a three-judge panel of the Australian Federal Court decided that the cutoff of alumina was lawful, no matter how small the Russian shareholding in the joint venture was, and no matter where in the world and to whom the Rusal share of the alumina was shipped and sold.
Source: https://www.austlii.edu.au/
On the Russian shareholding threshold for sanctions to apply, the appeal court claimed that Deripaska and his Russian oligarch partner Victor Vekselberg were “significant indirect shareholders of UC Rusal and thereby ABC.” Vekselberg’s stake was identified in the court ruling as 25.52% of Rusal, and since Rusal through the Alumina and Bauxite Company (ABC) held a 20% stake in QAL, his indirect stake in QAL amounted to 5.1%. No attempt was made by the court to calculate Deripaska’s shareholding; instead, it ruled that “given the bases upon which we have determined the appeal, it is not necessary to detail the nature and extent of Messrs Deripaska and Vekselberg’s indirect shareholdings.”
An expert interpretation of the Australian court decision is that it is tougher and has extended further than the originating US sanctions law. “While the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the EU and the U.K. enforce sanctions for 50% or 50%-plus designated ownership, Australian courts’ rulings in the United Co. Rusal cases set a far lower threshold for liability…Australia’s sanctions laws [are] much more burdensome on those who must comply, at least with respect to the designated entity provisions, than those of the U.K., the U.S. and Europe.”
The appeal court judges went on to accept the evidence of a single local expert who claimed that if Rusal’s alumina were shipped to China, it might end up as a Chinese export to Russia, and that this trade would be untraceable for the Australians. But even if the QAL alumina owned by Rusal didn’t end up in Russia, as the judges believed it would, they also ruled that the final destination didn’t matter. This, they judged, was because the sanction applied to any benefit, direct or indirect, to Russia.
“Even if it were to be accepted that, following the imposition of the Export Sanction, UC Rusal and/or ABC [Alumina and Bauxite Company] would have successfully taken steps to prevent alumina delivered to ABC from the Gladstone Plant being physically transferred to Russia, a direct or indirect result of the delivery to ABC would have been that the alumina would be transferred for the benefit of Russia. The benefit arises from the fact that UC Rusal would be able to direct the transfer of the Gladstone alumina to China which would increase the availability of other alumina in China to be purchased by UC Rusal.”
“ ‘Anything that is for the good of a person or thing’ or ‘advantage, profit, good’ — this construction,” the court decided, “ better gives effect to the purposes of the Regulations and legislation.”
In effect, the court was ruling that it is lawful for the Australian government to declare unrestricted economic war against Russia, on a ministerial decision without parliamentary review or vote to authorize. Rusal’s lawyers didn’t challenge the power of the Australian foreign minister to decide this; no evidence was called into court of the evidence which that official or his ministry had used in deciding to issue the sanction.
Russian retaliation has followed on April 11. In a report by the Moscow business newspaper Kommersant, published on April 13, Rusal’s lawyers have asked the Kaliningrad arbitration court to order Rio Tinto to pay damages of Rb104.75 billion ($1.3 billion) for Rio Tinto’s gains, Rusal’s losses resulting from the imposition of the Australian government sanctions on the alumina supplies from Queensland.
For the time being, according to the press report, “the case is being considered in a closed session. The texts explaining the essence of the requirements have not been published.”
However, the newspaper’s source believes that Rusal is targeting Rio Tinto’s stake in the Oyu Tolgoi cooper mine in Mongolia. According to the latest Rio Tinto annual report, the mine has already absorbed more than $7 billion in capital investment and “is expected to produce (from the open pit and underground) an average of about 500,000 tonnes of copper per year from 2028 to 2036.” At the current market price for copper, this represents about $5 billion in value.
During last year Rio Tinto has reported that in large part due to “ramp-up” of copper production at Oyu Tolgoi, “we generated significantly higher net cash from operating activities of $2.6 billion.”
Rio Tinto’s shareholding in the Mongolian project is 66%; the balance is owned by the Mongolian government.
The objective of the new Rusal litigation is to win a Russian court award of billion-dollar damages, and then apply for enforcement through the direct and indirect links between the Russian and Mongolian governments. According to Kommersant, there is the risk that the Russian-owned railways in Mongolia will cut raw material supplies and movement for Rio Tinto, just it had done to Rusal’s alumina in Australia.
For the time being, Rio Tinto has not reported or replied to the Russian counter-sanction.
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