USA: The United States announced new sanctions on Wednesday in Russia's major financial institutions and the number of people detained in the Kremlin, including the two daughters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, as it looks set to escalate economic pressure on Russia and Putin itself following gruesome images from the Ukrainian city. of Bucha.
The US has also announced sanctions on the wife and daughter of Putin's Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov. The United Kingdom later announced the sanctions, and the European Union was expected to follow suit, stepping up Western pressure on Moscow as the war entered its second month.
These sanctions are designed to strengthen the Russian economy, which has been subject to Western sanctions. However, the dire consequences of the Ukrainian invasion did not seem to force Putin to undermine a vicious campaign that has always been well-publicized.
The sanctions for "full blockade" in Russia's largest financial institution, Sberbank, and its largest private bank, Alfa Bank, are designed to strain the Russian economy even further. They will ban transactions with any US financial institutions and suspend assets held by US banks.
Sberbank owns about one-third of Russia's bank assets, and the White House says by Wednesday's sanctions, more than two-thirds of Russia's banking sector is now banned.
"The sad fact is that Putin 's war will make it difficult for Russians to go abroad. It means that their debit cards may not work.
"The reality is that the country is falling into economic and financial and technological divisions and at this rate, it will return to Soviet-style standards from the 1980s," the official continued.
In guiding Putin 's two older daughters, the US hopes to suspend any assets the Russian president may be hiding in, according to a senior administration official. Without explaining what Putin's assets may have been hidden with Mary Putina and Katerina Tikhonova, the official said the practice was common among Russian dignitaries.
Members of the Russian Security Council, including former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, have also been targeted by sanctions. The US has already punished more than 140 oligarchs and their family members and more than 400 Russian government officials, a senior official said.
The new sanctions will cut off those people in the U.S. banking system and freeze any assets held in the United States.
The White House has also announced a new investment ban in Russia that will be implemented in line with the G7 and the EU. The ban will begin with an order signed by President Joe Biden.
And the US will also implement a full ban on key Russian state-owned enterprises, which will be announced by the Ministry of Finance on Thursday. The official also noted Tuesday's announcement that the Treasury Department had barred Russia from repaying US dollar bills.
While the US and its allies have imposed sanctions-based sanctions on Russia's historic equivalent, officials admit that it has done little to change Putin's stance. The threat of sanctions did not deter the attack itself, nor did the accumulation of economic sanctions bring Russia closer to withdrawing or rescinding the agreement since then.
Pressured about the implications of sanctions for ending Putin's war in Ukraine, the official sought to emphasize their impact on Russian life and said Putin would eventually face his people.
"Even an autocrat like Putin has a social contract with the Russian people. He has taken away their freedom to get a promising stability, so he is not giving them stability," the official said.