April 6 (UPI) — The United States, in conjunction with the G7 and the European Union, announced Wednesday that new punishing sanctions are being imposed on Russia.
The sanctions target Russian banks, President Vladimir Putin’s adult children, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s wife and daughter as well as members of Russia’s Security Council.
“The United States is announcing devastating economic measures to ban new investment in Russia, and impose the most severe financial sanctions on Russia’s largest bank and several of its most critical state-owned enterprises and on Russian government officials and their families,” the White House said in a statement.
The new sanctions follow U.S. action earlier this week to “cut off Russia’s frozen funds in the United States to make debt payments,” the White House said.
The measures are designed to reinforce each other to generate intensifying impact over time.
Wednesday’s sanctions include full blocking on Sberbank, Russia’s largest financial institution, and Russia’s largest private bank, Alfa Bank.
According to the White House, the action freezes any of Sberbank’s and Alfa Bank’s assets touching the U.S. financial system. The new sanctions also prohibit people in the United States from doing business with them.
The White House statement Wednesday also said President Joe Biden will sign an executive order prohibiting new investment in the Russian Federation by Americans.
The new U.S. sanctions do not preclude payments on Russia’s sovereign debt at this time, as long as Russia uses funds outside U.S. jurisdiction, according to the White House. But that leaves Russia the choice of draining available funds to pay the debt or defaulting on the debt.
