The United States has announced the largest package of sanctions against Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, which turns two years old this Saturday. They will target more than 500 individuals and companies related to the imprisonment and treatment in prison of Alexei Navalny, as well as the financing of the war machine of Vladimir Putin, whom Washington blames for the death of its main opponent.
The sanctions will be detailed and activated throughout Friday, and will be imposed in coordination between the Treasury and State departments. On Tuesday, the White House announced that it was preparing “significant sanctions” for the death of Navalny, with whose wife, Yulia Navalnaya, President Joe Biden had a meeting yesterday in San Francisco (California).
The new sanctions “will be directed against people related to Navalny’s imprisonment, as well as against the financial sector, the defense industrial base, procurement networks and evaders of sanctions against Russia on multiple continents,” Biden specified in a statement. statement addressed to the press. “They will ensure that Putin pays an even higher price for his aggression abroad and his repression at home.”
They add to the economic sanctions imposed in these two years of war by the West, which for the moment have not achieved the objective of deterring Russia from its war in Ukraine. In fact, the Russian economy grew more than 3.6% last year, 0.3% more than the United States, and the Putin government’s military investment has also continued to rise.
During this time, the United States has coordinated with its G-7 allies to cap the selling price of Russian oil in world markets and has frozen hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian central bank assets, in addition to imposing other trade restrictions to block the flow of technology and equipment to the Russian armed forces.
“Tomorrow it will be two years since Russian missiles began to explode near kyiv. Russian troops crossed the border with Ukraine. They began Vladimir Putin’s ferocious onslaught,” Biden recalled. “He believed that he could easily break the will and determination of a free people, that he could overwhelm a sovereign nation, that he could shake the foundations of security in Europe and beyond.”
“Two years later, we see even more vividly what we have known from day one: Putin miscalculated. The brave Ukrainian people fight on, unwavering in their determination to defend their freedom and their future. NATO is stronger, bigger and “is more united than ever. And the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition supporting Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical aid and holding Russia accountable for its aggression.”
The president has reiterated his demand that Republicans lift their blockade on the additional aid package for Ukraine, approved in the Senate – with the vote of its Democratic majority and some moderate Republicans – but that the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson refuses to put it to a vote for final approval. The bill consists of 95.3 billion dollars, mainly intended to help Ukraine (60 billion), Israel (14.1 billion), sending humanitarian assistance (9.2 billion) and supporting US allies in the Indo-U.S. Pacific (4.8 billion).
The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, has traveled to Ukraine along with four other Democratic senators to reiterate his support in the war of resistance against the Russian invasion. Schumer has said the visit is a display of American support for Ukraine, as well as a demonstration to NATO countries that the US “is not abandoning Europe” and “is not backing down from its responsibilities to allies,” a clear contrast to Donald Trump’s statements earlier this month, in which he stated that he told a European leader in 2018 that he would “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell it wants” with NATO allies that do not spend enough on defense .