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US Says it Imposes Sanctions on Moscow-Backed Iranian Oil Smuggling Network

The United States Department of the Treasury is seen in Washington, DC, US, August 30, 2020. (Reuters)
The United States Department of the Treasury is seen in Washington, DC, US, August 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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US Says it Imposes Sanctions on Moscow-Backed Iranian Oil Smuggling Network

The United States Department of the Treasury is seen in Washington, DC, US, August 30, 2020. (Reuters)
The United States Department of the Treasury is seen in Washington, DC, US, August 30, 2020. (Reuters)

The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on what it described as a Russian-backed oil smuggling and money laundering network for Iran's Revolutionary Guards Quds Force, even as Washington tries to revive the Iran nuclear deal.

The US Treasury Department said the network was led by current and former Quds Force figures, "backed by senior levels of the Russian Federation government" and included Chinese companies and a former Afghan diplomat. It had raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran's Quds Force and Tehran's Lebanese allies Hezbollah, and helped Tehran support proxy militant groups, Treasury said.

The Quds Force is the foreign espionage and paramilitary arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and controls its allied militia abroad. The Trump administration put the guards on the State Department list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) in 2019, the first time Washington formally labeled another nation’s military a terrorist group.

The Biden administration has been engaged in indirect talks to restart a 2015 deal former President Donald Trump abandoned, under which world powers lifted international financial sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

"While the United States continues to seek a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), we will strictly enforce sanctions on Iran’s illicit oil trade," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a separate statement, referring to the nuclear deal.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York and the Russian and Chinese embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

While talks had appeared close to resurrecting the nuclear deal in March, they stalled over last-minute Russian demands and whether Washington might drop the Revolutionary Guards from its terrorism list. Washington's Iran envoy said on Wednesday the chances of reviving the nuclear deal were shaky at best, and Washington was ready to tighten sanctions on Iran.

Wednesday's sanctions targeted Russia-based RPP LLC, which the Treasury said was used to help transfer millions of dollars on behalf of the Quds Force, and UAE-based Zamanoil DMCC, which Washington accused of working with the Russian government and state-owned Rosneft to ship Iranian oil to companies in Europe.

A former Afghan Charge d’Affaires in Moscow was also designated, as were several people described as associates of the Revolutionary Guards.

Among a number of China-based companies that were designated were Beijing-based Haokun Energy Group Company Limited and its Hong Kong-based subsidiary China Haokun Energy Limited. The Treasury accused China Haokun Energy Limited of purchasing millions of barrels of Iranian oil from the Quds Force.

Reuters was not immediately able to contact the designated companies.

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France Asks for a NATO Exercise in Greenland, Is Ready to Participate

Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
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France Asks for a NATO Exercise in Greenland, Is Ready to Participate

Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)
Snow-covered houses line a hillside in Nuuk, Greenland, as warm evening light hits the neighborhood on January 20, 2026. (AFP)

France has asked for a ​NATO exercise in Greenland and is ready to contribute to it, French President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Wednesday.

News of the request comes ‌as US ‌President Donald ‌Trump barrels ⁠into ​Davos, ‌Switzerland, on Wednesday, where he is likely to use the World Economic Forum to escalate his push for acquiring Greenland despite European ⁠protests in the biggest fraying of ‌transatlantic ties in ‍decades.

Speaking in ‍Davos on Tuesday, Macron ‍said Europe would not give in to bullies or be intimidated, in a scathing ​criticism of Trump's threat to impose steep tariffs if ⁠Europe does not let him take over Greenland.

NATO leaders have warned that Trump's Greenland strategy could upend the alliance. Trump has linked Greenland to his anger at not receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

World

EU Stands Ready to Defend Itself Against Coercion, Costa Says

European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
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EU Stands Ready to Defend Itself Against Coercion, Costa Says

European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)
European Council President Antonio Costa addresses the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, January 21, 2026. (Reuters)

The European Union will defend itself ​against any form of coercion and will protect the international rules-based order and international law, EU Council President ‌Antonio Costa ‌said ‌on ⁠Wednesday.

"We ​stand ‌ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies, against any form of coercion. ⁠And the European Union has ‌the power and ‍the ‍tools to do ‍so," Costa said in a speech in European Parliament.

"We cannot accept ​that the law of the strongest prevails over ⁠the rights of the weakest," Costa said.

"Because international rules are not optional. And alliances cannot just boil down to a sequence of transactions."

World

Gunman Jailed for Life in Killing of Japan Ex-PM Abe

In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
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Gunman Jailed for Life in Killing of Japan Ex-PM Abe

In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)
In this picture taken on July 24, 2019 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks on the podium during a ceremony marking one year before the start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. (AFP)

The gunman charged with killing Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was found guilty Wednesday and jailed for life, as the judge declared the broad-daylight assassination "despicable and extremely malicious".

The shooting more than three years ago forced a reckoning in a country with little experience of gun violence, and ignited scrutiny of alleged ties between prominent conservative lawmakers and a secretive sect, the Unification Church.

As he handed down the sentence at a court in the city of Nara, judge Shinichi Tanaka said Tetsuya Yamagami, 45, had been "determined" to shoot Abe.

The fact he "shot him from behind and did so when (Abe) was least expecting it" points to the "despicable and extremely malicious" nature of his act, he said.

A queue of people waited Wednesday morning for tickets to enter the courtroom, highlighting intense public interest in the trial.

Yamagami looked down and expressed little emotion during the sentencing for charges including murder and firearms control law violations, after he used a handmade gun to kill Japan's longest-serving leader during his campaign speech in July 2022.

The defense team of Yamagami -- who had admitted to murder at the trial opening in October -- told a press conference they had not yet decided whether to appeal, which under Japan's legal system must be done within two weeks.

- 'Significant grief' -

Prosecutors had argued that the defendant's motive to kill Abe was rooted in his desire to besmirch the Unification Church.

The months-long trial highlighted how his mother's blind donations to the church plunged his family into bankruptcy and how he came to believe "influential politicians" were helping the sect thrive.

Abe had spoken at events organized by some of the church's groups.

Judge Tanaka said "it is undeniable that the defendant's upbringing influenced the formation of his personality and his mindset... and that it even played a distant role" in his actions.

But "each criminal action he took was based on nothing but his own decision-making, the process of which deserves strong condemnation", he added.

Katsuya Nakatani, a 60-year-old member of the public who was in the courtroom, said the judge had convinced him that "even if there was room for extenuating circumstances... opening fire with so many people around is, after all, something that cannot be forgiven".

"I even began to think it might have been a stroke of luck that only one person died," he said.

Another man outside court held a banner urging the judge to take Yamagami's difficult life circumstances "into the fullest consideration".

- Draw attention -

Yamagami "thought if he killed someone as influential as former prime minister Abe, he could draw public attention to the Church and fuel public criticism of it", a prosecutor told a district court in western Japan's Nara region in October.

The Unification Church was established in South Korea in 1954, with its members nicknamed "Moonies" after founder Sun Myung Moon.

In a plea for leniency, his defense team stressed his upbringing had been mired in "religious abuse" stemming from his mother's extreme faith in the Unification Church.

In despair after the suicide of her husband -- and with her other son gravely ill -- Yamagami's mother poured all her assets into the Church to "salvage" her family, Yamagami's lawyer said, adding that her donations eventually snowballed to around 100 million yen ($1 million at the time).

Yamagami was forced to give up pursuing higher education. In 2005, he attempted to take his own life before his brother died by suicide.

Investigations after Abe's murder led to cascading revelations about close ties between the Church and many conservative lawmakers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, prompting four ministers to resign.

In 2020, Yamagami began hand-crafting a firearm, a process that involved meticulous test-firing sessions in a remote mountainous area.

This points to the highly "premeditated" nature of his attack on Abe, prosecutors said.
The assassination was also a wake-up call for a nation which has some of the world's strictest gun controls.

Gun violence is so rare in Japan that security officials at the scene failed to immediately identify the sound made by the first shot, and came to Abe's rescue too late, a police report after the attack said.

Prosecutors sought a life sentence for Yamagami, calling the murder "unprecedented in our post-war history" and citing the "extremely serious consequences" it had on society, according to local media.

The Japanese version of life imprisonment leaves open the possibility of parole, although in reality, experts say many die while incarcerated.