Biden and Putin’s Ukraine crisis gets personal with sanctions threat
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he attends his annual end-of-year news conference in Moscow, Russia, December 23, 2021.
Evgenia Novozhenina | Reuters
The U.S. has sent the clearest message yet that Russia, its key economic sectors as well as its leader Vladimir Putin, could face the severest sanctions it has ever faced if it invades Ukraine.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden intimated that his Russian counterpart could face personal sanctions should Moscow give a greenlight for its army to invade.
Russia has around 100,000 troops and military hardware stationed at various points along its border with Ukraine and there are heightened fears it is planning to invade its neighbor, although Moscow has repeatedly denied that it is planning to do so.
Western allies are taking no chances with NATO placing its forces on standby and reinforcing its positions in Eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets. The U.S. has put thousands of troops on heightened alert, meaning they are ready to deploy to the region should the crisis escalate.
Severe sanctions
The U.S., the U.K. and the EU have already said that Russia will be subjected to new sanctions on key individuals and sectors of its economy if it does invade Ukraine. Russia has already seen sectors like energy, finance and defense targeted by previous rounds of sanctions for its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
But the U.S. gave its clearest signal yet on Tuesday that it will look to cripple Russia’s economy — which would likely lead to immense pressure on Putin, both from the Russian people and the country’s business leaders — if Moscow invades its neighbor again.
Biden said Tuesday that he would feel obliged to beef up NATO defenses in Poland and Romania, in Eastern Europe, and when asked whether he could see himself imposing sanctions on the Russian president personally, he replied, “Yes, I would see that.”
The U.K. has signaled it could do the same with the country’s Foreign Secretary Liz Truss saying, “we are not ruling out anything” when asked if Putin could be sanctioned, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Threats of personal sanctions against Putin would be a big step up from previous measures against the Russian state and could see the West target Putin’s wealth and inhibit his travel, although no further details have been revealed.
The Kremlin responded to those comments on Wednesday, saying any personal sanctions on Putin would be politically destructive, but not painful, according to Reuters.
Senior White House officials told reporters on a call regarding economic deterrence measures being considered against Russia that “we are prepared to implement sanctions with massive consequences that were not considered in 2014” when Russia annexed Crimea.
The measures they’re considering range from more financial sanctions to the use of “novel export controls” that could greatly impede Russia’s access to U.S.-made technology components, similar to those used against Chinese technology…
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