Newsman: The United States and European Union took the rare step of imposing sanctions on a head of state by targeting Putin, as well as his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and other members of Russia’s Security Council.
President Joe Biden announced The United States will impose a slate of sanctions on Russian President Vladmir Putin and a handful of individuals believed to be among his closest security advisers, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the White House announced Friday. Twice this week, the United States has announced new sanctions against Russia’s largest banks and its sovereign debt, cutting them off from the U.S. banking system.
The United Kingdom and the European Union had announced similar sanctions earlier in the day.
President Biden said Thursday the new U.S. sanctions would nonetheless cripple Russia’s financial system and stymie its economic growth by targeting Russia’s biggest banks, which the Treasury Department said holds nearly 80% of all the country’s banking assets.
“Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,” Biden said, laying out measures that will “impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time.”
Citing the concerns of European allies, the U.S. also didn’t impose what was seen as the harshest punishment at its disposal, banning Russia from SWIFT, the international financial system that banks use to move money around the world.
U.S. sanctions target Russian President Vladmir Putin and a handful of individuals believed to be among his closest security advisers. But the list is just as notable for who isn’t on it — most of the top names from Forbes’ list of the richest Russians whose multi-billion-dollar fortunes are now largely intertwined with the West, from investments in Silicon Valley start-ups to British Premier League soccer teams.
A 2017 study of Russian oligarchs published by the U.S.-based National Economic Bureau estimated that as much as $800 billion is held by wealthy Russians in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Cyprus, and similar offshore banking centers. That vast fortune, held by a few hundred ultra-rich individuals, is roughly equal to the wealth of the entire rest of the Russian population of 144 million people.
Some oligarchs have also obtained dual citizenship in Britain and other Western countries, adding legal complications to attempts to unilaterally seize their assets.
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The family fortunes of many in Russia’s billionaires date back to the 1990s, the turbulent decade after the fall of the Soviet Union. Under the notoriously corrupt presidency of Boris Yeltsin, such key state-controlled assets as oil refineries, steel mills, aluminum smelters and tractor factories were gobbled up by the politically influential, often purchased with the aid of government-backed loans.
Then in 1999 Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and the then-relatively unknown Putin was appointed as acting president. A former KGB agent, Putin had earlier been appointed by Yeltsin as the head of Russia’s FSB, among the country’s most powerful spying and security agencies.
Putin has ruled Russia for the last 22 years, crushing those who have dared challenge him.
Russia launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on Wednesday, sending tens of thousands of Russian troops into dozens of Ukrainian cities with the apparent aim of capturing Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.
