(Reuters) – The following are brief descriptions of the 17 Russian companies against which the United States imposed sanctions on Monday over Russia’s role in the Ukraine crisis.
* Aquanika – A producer of bottled water and 100 percent subsidiary of Volga Group (see below), which is controlled by Gennady Timchenko, a long-standing ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Timchenko was placed on a U.S. sanctions list in March. It was founded in 2007 and has production facilities in the Nizhny Novgorod region with annual capacity of up to 500 million liters.
* Avia Group – The company, founded in 2006, develops infrastructure and provides services for aircraft maintenance at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo international airport. Volga Group has a 74 percent stake.
* Avia Group Nord – Provides services for private jets at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport, including ground handling, flight operations support and fuelling. Volga Group has a 70 percent stake.
* Zest – A leasing company based in St Petersburg. Provides a range of services including real estate, vehicle, equipment and business jet leasing. It was described as a 100 percent subsidiary of Bank Rossiya, which was hit by U.S. sanctions in March, in Bank Rossiya’s 2013 financial report.
* InvestCapitalbank – A bank, established in 1993, based in Russia’s Volga region and controlled by the Rotenberg brothers Boris and Arkady. The Rotenbergs, linked to big contracts on gas pipelines and at the Sochi Olympics, were named on the U.S. sanctions list in March.
* Sobinbank – Moscow-based bank, founded in 1990 and controlled by Bank Rossiya. Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc stopped providing services for payment transactions for clients at Bank Rossiya and Sobinbank after the March sanctions.
* STG (Stroytransgaz) Group – A construction holding company controlled by Timchenko. Stroytransgaz plans to build the European section of the South Stream gas pipeline intended to carry Russian gas to southern Europe via the Black Sea, avoiding Ukraine.
* Stroytrasngaz Holding, Stroytransgaz LLC (also known as OOO Stroytransgaz), Stroytransgaz OJSC (also known as OAO Stroytransgaz) and Stroytransgaz-M are all part of the STG Group and are named on the sanctions list.
* SMP Bank – Co-owned by the Rotenberg brothers, with each holding a 38.05 percent stake, according to the bank’s website. SMP said in March it had felt the impact of earlier U.S. sanctions with around 9 billion rubles ($248 million) withdrawn by depositors in the days after the measures were imposed.
* Stroygazmontazh – A builder of oil and gas pipeline projects for Russian state and private energy companies, controlled by Arkady Rotenberg.
* Sakhatrans – An 89 percent-owned subsidiary of Volga Group (see below). It is working on a project to build a coal and iron ore terminal in Russia’s Far East.
* Transoil – Russia’s biggest private railway carrier of oil and oil products is 80 percent owned by Volga Group (see below). Key clients include Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz, Gazprom Neft and Novatek.
* Volga Group – A privately-held investment group controlled by Timchenko. It owns assets in energy and mining, as well as in transportation, logistics, consumer goods and real estate. It has a 23 percent stake in Russia’s No.2 gas producer Novatek.
(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova, Polina Devitt, Alessandra Prentice, Megan Davies, Vladimir Soldatkin and Nigel Stephenson, editing by William Hardy)
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