Biden Announces New Sanctions on Russia After Invasion of Ukraine

Cover Story February 25, 2022

Editorial Staff - February 25, 2022

With new sanctions being put into place the United States and its allies have now targeted all 10 of Russia’s largest financial institutions through a combination of “full blocking” sanctions that will effectively choke off all transactions with U.S. entities, as well as the “correspondent” sanctions that bar transactions with U.S. banks, with debt and equity sanctions on institutions holding nearly 80 percent of Russian bank assets, the White House said. A move that has finally shown some backbone on the part of the Administration.

These sanctions target not only Russia’s largest state-owned banks but also a number of Russian political and business elites. They also penalize companies in virtually every major sector of the economy, including mining and minerals as well as telecommunications and railways (Washington Post). He announced sanctions this morning. But, at one point, Biden said “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening…Putin’s not going to say ‘oh, my god, the sanctions are coming’” (Fox News). From Katie Pavlich: Given the position of the West and the lack of unity, specifically from Germany, Putin may just go beyond Ukraine to test NATO and see if they’ll actually respond (Twitter). From Hugh Hewitt: “‘These sanctions exceed SWIFT,’” says @BretBaier quoting @POTUS. “We’ll see about that.” Bret is right to focus on this weakest link in @POTUS remarks, which reflects weakest link in Allies’ position. It’s not believable for POTUS to say “stronger than SWIFT” (Twitter). The Wall Street Journal explains Swift (WSJ). From Mitch McConnell: Putin’s initial aggression was just a small foretaste of what this thug had planned for Ukraine. America’s response will be measured carefully by our friends, by our adversaries, and by history itself. We cannot afford to fail this test (Twitter).