Ukraine slaps individual sanctions on Syrian President, PM

Kiev: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday approved individual sanctions against Syrian President Bashar Assad and several other high-ranking officials of the Middle Eastern country.

The sanctions include the blocking of assets, bans on the transfer of capital outside Ukraine, suspension of economic and financial obligations, as well as prohibition of technology transfer, among other measures, according to the document published by the Ukrainian president’s office.

Measures also target Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad and Prime Minister Hussein Arnous.

The sanctions will remain in effect for 10 years.

Earlier in the week, Assad told Sputnik that Damascus recognizes the new borders of Russia, following referendums in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and the Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics on the accession to Russia in September 2022, adding that these areas have been “historically Russian land.”