President Joe Biden says new sanctions by the United States are targeted at Russia’s largest banks and Vladamir Putin’s daughters, who may be keeping some assets owned by their father.
This is just as Biden declared that “major war crimes” were being discovered in Ukraine as Russian forces retreat from areas around Kyiv.
The US president cited scenes of brutal, cold-blooded executions as rationale for increased US sanctions on Moscow.
“Responsible nations have to come together to hold these perpetrators accountable,” Biden told a union crowd in Washington as the White House announced new sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institutions and number of individuals tied to the Kremlin, including Russian President Vladimir Putin’s two adult daughters.
“We will keep raising the economic cost and ratchet up the pain for Putin and further increase Russia’s economic isolation,” Biden said, decrying the intentional targeting of civilians by Russia.
Horrific images from the Ukrainian city of Bucha imparted “a sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see, unapologetically,” Biden said in his remarks as he announced new steps the US was taking to punish those responsible.
The sanctions are designed to tighten the vise on Russia’s economy, which has been kneecapped by Western punishment, CNN reports.
“The fight is far from over,” he said. “This war could continue for a long time.”
The “full blocking” sanctions on Russia’s largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa Bank, are meant to grind Russia’s economy further to a halt.
They will prohibit transactions with any American financial institutions and freeze assets held by the banks in the US.
“They will not be able to touch any of their money. They will not be able to do any business here,” Biden said.
Sberbank holds nearly one-third of Russia’s total banking sector assets, and the White House says that with Wednesday’s sanctions, more than two-thirds of the Russian banking sector are now blocked.
“The sad reality is Putin’s war will make it harder for Russians to travel abroad. It means their debit cards may not work. They may only have the option to buy knockoff phones and knockoff clothes, the shelves at stores may be empty,” a senior administration official told reporters.
In targeting Putin’s two adult daughters, the US hopes to freeze any assets the Russian President may be hiding with them, according to the senior administration official.
Without detailing which of Putin’s assets could be hiding with Mariya Putina and Katerina Tikhonova, the official said the practice was common among the Russian elite.
Members of Russia’s Security Council, including former President and Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, are also being targeted by individual sanctions.
The US has already sanctioned more than 140 oligarchs and their family members and over 400 Russian government officials, the senior official said.
“Look, these oligarchs and their family members are not allowed to hold on to their wealth in Europe and the United States and keep these yachts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, their luxury vacation homes while children in Ukraine are being killed, displaced from their homes every single day,” Biden said in his speech.
The new sanctions will cut those individuals off from the US banking system and freeze any assets held in the United States.
