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Washington’s latest round of sanctions tied to Russia’s war in Ukraine has landed squarely on Uzbek soil, ensnaring a cement producer, a mobile-operator joint venture and two companies accused of helping funnel American goods to the Russian military — the broadest direct impact yet of the Western sanctions campaign on businesses operating inside Uzbekistan.
On 12 April, the US State Department and Treasury Department jointly announced measures targeting 120 entities and individuals across 20 countries. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the action, coordinated with the United Kingdom, was aimed specifically at a sanctions-evasion network supporting Alisher Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires and already a designated person under US sanctions. The new designations extend to USM Holding, the vehicle through which Usmanov controls the bulk of his business empire, and to a string of its subsidiaries including mobile operator MegaFon, iron-ore giant Metalloinvest and the Udokan copper project.
Uzbek cement and telecoms caught in the net
Among the newly listed entities is Akhangarancement, a cement producer based in Uzbekistan, and its founder Akkermann Cement CA, which was established by a USM holding company. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a wind-down licence covering Akkermann Cement CA and several other newly designated firms, giving counterparties until 11 July to conclude or exit existing transactions.
The telecoms sector faces more complex consequences. Digital Invest — a company to which MegaFon previously sold a stake, transferring it to its own parent USM Telecom — has also been designated. Digital Invest holds a 51-percent stake in Digital Holding, a joint venture with Uzbek authorities. That joint venture owns the Uzbek mobile operator Ucell (Coscom), the country’s labelling-system operator CRPT Turon, telecommunications infrastructure company Pervaya Bashennaya Kompaniya (in which Coscom holds a combined 99-percent stake alongside Digital Holding), and New Solutions.
Recognising the social and economic sensitivity of cutting off telecoms services, OFAC carved out a permanent licence permitting any transactions — including the sale of American goods and technology — involving MegaFon or Digital Invest, provided those transactions are directed at delivering telecommunications services in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan.
Cyprus structures and a financial adviser named
The designations also reach a web of Cyprus-registered, Cayman Islands-based entities. Almenor, Klaret Aviation and Navis Marine — all owned by a structure called The Sister Trust — were listed, as were three further Cypriot companies, Windfel, Savoler and Miramonte Investments, which US authorities allege are owned by Usmanov. Miramonte Investments holds an 8.2-percent stake in the Tashkent Metallurgical Plant; Metalloinvest holds a further 41.9 percent.
Washington also designated Demetrios Sergides, a Cypriot national described by US authorities as an adviser to Usmanov who handles financial matters on the billionaire’s behalf and serves as trustee of The Sister Trust.
Two Uzbek firms accused of sanctions evasion for Russia’s military
Separately, the US Commerce Department imposed export restrictions on two Uzbekistan-registered companies — Alfa Beta Creative and GFK Logistic Asia — on the grounds that they attempted to circumvent sanctions by procuring American goods for Russia’s military and defence industry.
Uzbek corporate records show Alfa Beta Creative was registered in Tashkent on 6 June 2022 with a charter capital of just two million soums, listing wholesale of office equipment and machinery as its primary activity, with Svetlana Karimovna Haidari as founder. GFK Logistic Asia, an overland transport services company, was established on 28 March 2018 with an authorised capital of 200 million soums; its founders are listed as Albert Abdusamatovich Shukurov and GFK Logistic Asia itself.
MegaFon, for its part, rejected the measures. The company called the US sanctions “unfair, illegal and groundless,” saying it was a commercial enterprise providing services of high social importance to millions of customers and that it intended to challenge the restrictions “by all means available.”
The breadth of the April package — spanning a Uzbek cement plant, a joint-venture mobile operator, offshore holding structures and small trading firms — illustrates how deeply the effort to isolate Usmanov’s network and to close sanctions-evasion routes through Central Asia has now penetrated Uzbekistan’s corporate landscape.