Budapest, April 13, (dpa/GNA) – The US Treasury Department has imposed sanctions on the Budapest-based but Russian-controlled International Investment Bank (IIB), US officials announced on Wednesday.
The IIB was originally founded under Soviet Union leadership to be a development bank for the former Eastern bloc. In 2019, the bank moved its headquarters from Moscow to Budapest at the invitation of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria all withdrew from the IIB in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine. That left Hungary as the only remaining EU or NATO member country remaining in the bank.
The US Treasury Department and the US Ambassador in Budapest David Pressman simultaneously announced the new sanctions against the bank on Wednesday.
“Hungary’s choice to host the bank – within EU and NATO territory – is a cause of enormous concerns,” Pressman told reporters at the embassy.
The bank’s presence in Budapest allows Russia to expand its intelligence activities in Europe and opens the door for Moscow to exert its pernicious influence in central Europe and the western Balkans, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
The sanctions imposed on Wednesday also target three of the bank’s leaders, two Russian and one Hungarian.
Among other things, the sanctions mean that the accounts and assets tied to the bank or the sanctioned individual leaders in the US will be frozen. Sanctioned individuals are also not allowed to enter the US.
US sanctions can also have a crippling impact on banks because of the central role of US institutions in the global banking and financial systems.
Orbán, a right-wing populist, still maintains good relations with Russia. His Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó visited Moscow on Tuesday to sign energy contracts.
It was Szijjártó’s fourth trip to Russia since the beginning of the war. On Wednesday, Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik was in Budapest at the invitation of Szijjártó.
Belarus is considered a close and highly dependent ally of Russia.
GNA