Washington announced new sanctions against VTB Bank, Russia's second‑largest lender after Sberbank, accusing it of facilitating Iranian sanction evasion and financing terrorism. The U.S. State Department said VTB opened branches in Iran, maintained relationships with sanctioned Iranian banks and transferred assets worth billions of dollars. As a result, all VTB assets located in the United States are now frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from conducting any business with the bank.
VTB, founded in 1990 as an export‑oriented bank, is majority‑owned by the Russian state. The sanctions mark a further escalation in Washington's effort to increase economic pressure on Iran and its partners.
The move follows earlier U.S. actions this month against Turkey's Golden Global Bank, which was sanctioned for enabling multi‑million‑dollar transactions for Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. Like VTB, Golden Global Bank now faces a total freeze of its U.S. assets and a ban on U.S. transactions.
In the same period, the United States expanded its sanctions program to include 27 Iranian airlines, such as Kish Airlines, Iran Air Tour and ATA Airlines, and to target organizations and individuals supporting the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah and Lebanese Hezbollah across the Middle East.
These measures build on a broader U.S. strategy announced under former President Donald Trump to wage an "economic war" on Iran, aiming to cut off financial channels that sustain Tehran's military and proxy activities.
