KYIV (Reuters) -Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday signed a decree imposing sanctions on tycoon Dmytro Firtash, the presidential office said.
The decree said sanctions included an asset freeze, ban on capital withdrawal, revocation of licences, restriction of resource transit and other restrictions.
Ukraine’s security and defence council last week announced the sanctions against Firtash, accusing him of selling titanium products that allegedly end up being used by Russian military enterprises. Firtash denies the accusations.
The manufacture of titanium products is a core business in Firtash’s Group DF and it includes titanium mining and enrichment, the production of titanium dioxide, titanium slag, sponge ingots and slabs.
Relations between Ukraine and Russia collapsed after Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula in 2014 and support for separatist forces in the eastern Donbass region in a conflict that Kyiv says has killed 14,000 people.
Firtash is a former supporter of Ukraine’s ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich and made a fortune selling Russian gas to the Kyiv government.
Firtash rose to become a wealthy and influential businessman in Ukraine. He has been indicted in the United States on bribery and racketeering charges. He denies wrongdoing and has fought extradition from Vienna.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Natalia Zinets; Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean)
