By Ross Kerber

BOSTON (Reuters), -Vanguard Group said Monday that it is moving quickly to enforce international sanctions against Russian banks and entities. The move came in response to Moscow’s invasion and subsequent sanctions being imposed on individuals and institutions.

A representative sent a statement to the top manager of mutual funds, stating that the fund is in dialogue with its external active managers about the steps it’s taking to reduce Russian exposure and comply with the sanctions.

Vanguard said Friday that it wouldn’t restrict active fund manager investment decisions.

The other options available to rival funds companies are: BlackRock Inc. (NYSE 🙂 stated on Thursday that it has suspended Russian securities purchase in active and index funds.

Vanguard has approximately $8.1 trillion in assets under management. However, $1.7 trillion is held by actively managed funds. Wellington Management, Boston, manages $767 billion of those funds. Vanguard claims that Russia represents less than 0.01% in total client exposure.

Russell and MSCI are major index providers. They have removed Russian debt and equities as deepening sanctions, public pressure and deeper sanctions has made it difficult for the West to invest in and trade with Russia. Russia called the actions it took in Ukraine “a special operation.”

Morningstar Inc announced Monday that it will reclassify Russia’s equity market as “emerging market” and “unclassified” starting March 18. This would remove all Russian stocks from some Morningstar indexes.

Morningstar stated that it will make similar changes in order to eliminate certain Russian securities fixed-income indexes. Morningstar stated that it was taking action because of western sanctions and “deteriorating investorability.”