Biden imposes sanctions on Russia's FSB and Iran's IRGC for arresting Americans

2023-04-28 07:31:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Biden imposes sanctions on Russia's FSB and Iran's IRGC for arresting

Illustrative photo

The Biden administration on Thursday announced new sanctions against Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and the intelligence arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for their roles in wrongfully arresting Americans abroad.

"These actors in Russia and Iran have tried to use the Americans for political leverage or to seek concessions from the United States," said one of two senior administration officials who briefed White House reporters on Thursday.

In addition to the two entities, sanctions have been placed on four key figures in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization (IRGC-IO), its head Mohammad Kazemi, as well as deputy chiefs Mehdi Sayari and Hassan Mohagheghi and vice president Ruhollah Bazghandi.

"The FSB has been consistently involved in the arrest, investigation and detention of US citizens wrongfully detained in Russia," he said.

The Biden administration official added that the intelligence arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps "frequently holds and interrogates detainees, including at least one American citizen wrongfully detained at Evin Prison," a detention facility in Tehran that has a "history long and abhorrent record of human rights abuses including widespread reports of torture”.

The sanctions are the first to be imposed under an executive order that President Joe Biden signed last July. More sanctions are expected to be announced.

Some experts are skeptical that these sanctions will work to facilitate the release of Americans. In the past, only the United States' acceptance of de facto prisoner exchanges, or in the case of Iran, the release of their held assets, would change their policies toward detained Americans, said Jacob Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

"However, overall, I do not consider this to be a particularly effective policy, but rather a 'good policy' to show the American people, and the press no less, that the administration is doing something to give back American citizens in the country," he told VOA.

At least two Americans are still detained in Russia: Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, imprisoned since March, and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive, imprisoned since 2018. Both are being held on charges of espionage that their families and the US State Department say are baseless.

Earlier this year, Russia released US Navy veteran Taylor Dudley, held since April in Kaliningrad.

Several Americans were also released last year in a prisoner exchange, such as women's basketball star Brittney Griner.

And US citizens Suedi Murekezi, Alexander John-Robert Drueke and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh were among dozens of individuals released in a prisoner swap between Ukraine and Russia in 2022./ Voa