The European Union's executive arm cut off Belarusian banks Belagroprombank, Bank Dabrabyt and the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus from the SWIFT global financial messaging network. The measure mirrored a similar move earlier this month against Russian lenders.
"We are further tightening the net of sanctions responding to Russia's military aggression against Ukraine," Ursula von der Leyen, the commission's president, said on Twitter.
The sanctions also ban transactions with the Central Bank of Belarus, which freezes the country's reserves held in EU banks. And the commission is prohibiting shares of companies owned by the state from trading on the bloc's exchanges.
Member states must also not accept deposits exceeding €100,000 ($111,000) from Belarusian nationals and bar them from buying euro-denominated securities.
"These amendments create a closer alignment of EU sanctions regarding Russia and Belarus and will help to ensure even more effectively that Russian sanctions cannot be circumvented, including through Belarus," the commission said.
The EC also clarified that crypto-assets fall under the sanctions, to stop the countries from using digital currencies from circumventing the bans.
"The EU confirmed the common understanding that loans and credit can be provided by any means, including crypto-assets, as well as further clarified the notion of 'transferable securities,' so as to clearly include crypto-assets," the commission said.
The authority also added 160 Russian individuals to the EU's sanctions list, including oligarchs and 146 members of the upper house of the country's parliament, the Federation Council.
Concerns are mounting that Russia will have problems serving its hard-currency debt after a string of unprecedented financial sanctions imposed by Britain, the U.S. and Europe. Restrictions included freezing Russian bank assets held abroad and restricting the Russian central bank's access to $630 billion in foreign currency reserves held abroad.
Russia's central bank limited domestic access to foreign currencies on Wednesday as Fitch Ratings warned of an imminent government default on its external debt.
--Editing by Joe Millis.
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