U.S. prepares sanctions against Kyrgyzstan for helping Russia - WP

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is preparing new economic restrictive measures against Kyrgyzstan to force the country to stop trading with Russia in sanctioned goods.

That's according to The Washington Post, citing U.S. officials, Ukrinform reports.

According to the newspaper's interlocutors, new restrictions against Kyrgyzstan may be introduced this week.

“Kyrgyzstan, while small relative to other countries, is a clear example of every factor at play at once to create an unacceptably [sanctions] evasion-friendly environment,” the senior official said.

Publicly available trade documents show that Kyrgyzstan's total exports to Russia surged in 2022, up 250% from the previous year, before the invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, some goods, such as rifle sights, were not previously exported from Kyrgyzstan to Russia.

In addition, documents on trade between the two countries also show that Kyrgyz companies purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronics-including specialized semiconductors and voltage amplifiers from Chinese and South Korean companies in February and March. Virtually equal amounts of the same types of electronics were exported from Kyrgyzstan to Russia during the same period.

The Russian firms that received the goods are in most cases well-known suppliers to the Russian defense industry.

As reported, in May, the U.S. Department of Commerce added a company from Kyrgyzstan to the "blacklist" for supporting Russia.