The United States Treasury Department announced early Monday that it would be freezing an additional $723 million USD worth of assets owned by Chernarussian officials and Chernarussian-backed banks. The sanctions would bring the total amount of frozen Chernarussian assets to a value of $1.43 billion USD, which is estimated to further impact the struggling country’s hunger and disease crisis.
The sanctions were placed after continued Chernarussian aggression against its neighboring states of Sahrani and Takistan. Following a brief Russian invasion in 2017, the Chernarussian military saw a vast upgrade in equipment while gaining combat experience, and began instigating border skirmishes in late 2019 to slowly gain territory from neighboring countries.
Following the Treasury Department, the U.S. Department of Defense announced the deployment of the U.S. Seventh Fleet to the Green Sea to protect civilian shipping lanes and enforce freedom of navigation, which had previously been disturbed by Takistani-Chernarussian conflicts. The Seventh Fleet will be led by the USS Ronald Reagan and the newly-activated USS Freedom in what a DOD spokesperson described as “A strong show of force to remind the world that the seas are for all to travel, and a power-hungry, troubled nation will not disrupt that.”
The 7th Fleet’s deployment raised concerns over a potential US-Chernarussian conflict due to Chernarus’ aggressive patrols in the Green Sea. A former Naval officer called the deployment “A riskier Libya” and referred to the 2009 incident where Chernarussian Mirage F1s and AJ 37s fired anti-ship missiles at a Singaporean naval group that sailed into the area. When confronted about the risk of attacks from the recently upgraded Chernarussian Air Force, a Naval Spokesperson indicated that “The 7th Fleet will be keeping their air-defense systems in top shape” and are prepared for “every risk of attack from Chernarus.”
Chernarussian officials responded to the U.S. sanctions and deployment, calling it an “unjust outrage that will only punish Chernarus for doing nothing but repelling trespassers and keeping our country strong” and promised retribution for the sanctions.