The United States will announce new sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, diplomats said, after Moscow declared two seceded territories in Ukraine independent and sent “peacekeeping” troops there.
Tomorrow, the United States will impose sanctions on Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea. “This blatant violation of international law and Ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity will be punished,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated after a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday night.
“We can, will, and must stand firm in our demands for Russia to withdraw its troops, return to the negotiating table, and seek a peaceful resolution.”
On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the breakaway regions of Ukraine independent and instructed the country’s military to send troops into the two territories “to keep order.” The West has expressed concern over these events.
Biden officials said Putin’s action did not cause the United States and its allies to immediately enact a sweeping set of sanctions against Russia should it invade Ukraine, because Russia already had military forces in the area.
Instead, the White House announced more moderate and specific sanctions in response.
During a speech at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden issued an executive order that White House press secretary Jen Psaki said “prohibit[s] new investment, trade, and financing by US persons to, from, or in so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine.”
On Tuesday, Pomeranz said more sanctions could be announced. Those would, according to another White House spokesperson, be aimed at Russia.
Reuters was unable to determine what sanctions or export restrictions would be announced Tuesday, but the Biden administration has prepared a preliminary list of Russian sanctions that will prohibit U.S. financial institutions from processing transactions for large Russian banks, according to people familiar with the situation over the weekend.
The strategy aims to damage Russia’s economy by restricting the “correspondent” banking relationships between targeted Russian banks and U.S. banks that enable foreign payments.
The United States will also use its most powerful sanctioning weapon against specific Russian individuals and firms by adding them to the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list, effectively expelling them from the American banking system, restricting their trade with Americans, and freezing their US assets, according to the same sources.
The Biden administration wants to relieve everyday Russians of the impact of US export regulations if Russia attacks Ukraine, and it intends to concentrate on industry sectors, according to a White House official late in January. But, he added, “key individuals” will face “significant penalties,” according to White House national security official Peter Harrell.
The administration, according to the document’s authors, decided against including any trade restrictions or limitations into the package because doing so might “degrade Russia’s capacity to have industrial production in a few key sectors.”
Harrell did not provide a list of industries, but other White House officials have mentioned aviation, maritime, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and military technology.