The U.S. Commerce Department has added 45 Russian and 58 Chinese companies it claims have ties to those countries’ militaries Monday, restricting exports of certain goods and technology to the designated entities.
The number of Russian aviation, rocket and nuclear companies with alleged military ties is nearly double that of the initial draft list reported by Reuters last month.
It also includes Russia’s Defense Ministry and its Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the spying agency blamed for this month’s massive cyberattack on U.S. government agencies.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the list of 103 Chinese and Russian entities sets a new process to “assist exporters in screening their customers for military end users.” Its publication comes after the Commerce Department expanded export restrictions and broadened military end use definitions targeting Russia, China and Venezuela in the spring.
“The Department recognizes the importance of leveraging its partnerships with U.S. and global companies to combat efforts by China and Russia to divert U.S. technology for their destabilizing military programs,” Ross said in a press release.
Sanctioned space chief Dmitry Rogozin was among the first Russian officials to react to the U.S. military list, calling it “dumb” and “illegal.” Soyuz rocket maker Progress and spacecraft scientific center TsNIIMash are two Roscosmos space agency entities added to the U.S. military list.
“They’re illegal like all previously imposed sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities,” Rogozin told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
“They’re dumb because the ‘military end user’ [label] is arbitrarily assigned to companies have not and are not such,” he said.
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