Export Administration Regulations: Revisions to Russia and Belarus Sanctions and Related Provisions; Other Revisions, Corrections, and Clarifications

Between February and May 2022, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has published a series of amendments to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) that have increasingly tightened export controls on the Russian Federation (Russia) and Belarus in response to Russia's further invasion of Ukraine, as substantially enabled by Belarus. This rule revises, corrects, and clarifies certain provisions of the EAR that pertain to these controls and related provisions. First, this rule makes certain revisions to the EAR's military end use and military end user controls as they apply to Russia and Belarus, as well as related modifications to the entries for entities on the Entity List that are Russian and Belarusian military end users. Second, it revises restrictions that apply to items destined for certain regions in Ukraine by clarifying the categories of license applications that BIS subjects to case-by-case review. Third, this rule clarifies and corrects provisions of the EAR that pertain to luxury goods destined for Russia and Belarus and items for use in Russia's oil refinery sector. Fourth, it makes a technical correction to an EAR provision describing items and activities subject to the EAR by adding a cross-reference to the Foreign Direct Product Rules of the EAR, which were updated shortly before the Russia and Belarus export controls were imposed. Finally, with regard to export control enforcement, including enforcement of the Russia and Belarus controls, this rule revises the EAR to allow export enforcement case charging letters to be made available to the public prior to the final administrative disposition of such cases.