US Imposes New Sanctions Against Crimea Officials

US Department of the Treasury has imposed new sanctions against seven Crimean top officials and the Crimea-based Chernomorneftegaz energy company, Friday.

"Crimea is occupied territory. We will continue to impose costs on those involved in ongoing violations of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity," David Cohen, US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence said, the Bloomberg reports.

The newly sanctioned officials are Pyotr Zima, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine's main directorate in Crimea, Aleksei Chaliy, the chairman of a coordinating council that worked on setting up administration for the city of Sevastopol, who signed the March agreement to unite Crimea and the city with Russia, Rustam Temirgaliev, Yuriy Zherebtsov, Mikhail Malyshev, Valery Medvedev, and Sergey Tsekov, the former vice speaker of Ukraine's parliament.

The gas company, Chernomorneftegaz, was sanctioned for being allegedly complicit in the misappropriation of state assets of Ukraine.

The new US sanctions against the leaders of Crimea will not be able to harm the republic, they are like "mosquito bites", Crimean Information Minister Dmitry Polonsky said in an interview with the CrimeaInform news agency, Itar-Tass reports.

Sanctions "mean nothing for today's Crimea and today's Russia; small mosquito bites are unable to stop us," Polonsky claimed.