A new Russian Finance Ministry regulation has separated Russian businesses and entrepreneurs targeted by foreign sanctions into their own legal category. According to a copy of the proposal posted on the Russian government’s regulations website, this would allow “special legislation” in areas like currency control and confidentiality to be created and then applied separately to those companies and individuals.

Finance Ministry representatives told the business newspaper RBC that the new rules are meant to “systematize legal norms that have changed in one way or another since 2014 in order to minimize the risk that sanctions from adversarial countries will have a negative effect on Russia’s economy.” However, the Finance Ministry emphasized that any new changes will not be intended to provide economic preference to parties targeted by foreign sanctions.