‘No one expected sanctions to prevent anything’: Biden’s baffling response after freezing all Kremlin assets in America, targeting four more banks: Says Putin wants to ‘re-establish Soviet Union’
- President Joe Biden condemned Vladimir Putin for his invasion of the Ukraine
- ‘Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,’ Biden said
- He announced a series of new sanctions on Russian financial insitutitions that he said will have a ‘severe’ effect on that nation’s economy
- Four more Russian banks will be hit with sanctions as will more Russian billionaires
- ‘We will limit Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds, and yen,’ Biden said
- Biden and G7 leaders condemned Putin for invading Ukraine
- Said he has ‘re-introduced war to the European continent’ and put himself on the ‘wrong side of history’
- Biden convened an emergency meeting in the Situation Room during Putin’s all-out invasion of Ukraine
Joe Biden on Thursday condemned Vladimir Putin for his invasion of the Ukraine and announced a series of new sanctions on Russian financial insitutitions that he said will have a ‘severe’ effect on that nation’s economy.
‘Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,’ Biden said in remarks at the White House.
He accused Putin of empire building with Thursday’s invasion into the Ukraine. And he said he didn’t underestimate the Russian leader’s ambitions.
‘He has much larger ambitions than Ukraine. He wants to re-establish the former Soviet Union. That is what this is about,’ the president said.
He said he had no plans to speak with Putin.
Biden’s speech, which was delayed twice on Thursday afternoon as Russian forces made their way swiftly across the Ukraine. The Kremlin seized control of Chernobyl nuclear power plant after a ‘fierce’ battle with the condition of nuclear storage facilities ‘unknown’, Ukraine said, sparking fears of a radiation leak that could cause fallout in Europe.
Video revealed Russian tanks and armoured vehicles standing in front of the destroyed reactor, which sits just 60 miles north of the capital Kyiv.
‘Now the entire world sees clearly what Putin and his Kremlin allies are really all about. This was never about a genuine security concern on their part. It was always about naked aggression,’ the president noted.
‘America stands up to bullies,’ he said. ‘This is who we are.’
Biden’s administration announced a series of new sanctions on Thursday that the president said would hurt the Russian economy for ‘both immediately and over time,’ arguing Moscow will fill the financial fallout for years.
He also said putting sanctions on Putin himself was ‘on the table’ but didn’t answer a question as to why none were announced Thursday.
But, in a baffling moment, he conceded that earlier sanctions – put on Russian financial institutions and Putin’s inner circle – didn’t prevent the Kremlin from invading its neighboring country.
As to why the U.S. keeps imposing them, the president argued sanctions would work with time.
‘No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening. It’s going to take time. And we have to show resolve so he knows what’s coming,’ Biden noted. ‘He is going to test the resolve of the West to see if we stay together.’
Top Biden officials, over the past few weeks, had argued the opposite – saying sanctions were meant to deter Russian aggression.
‘The President believes that sanctions are intended to deter,’ National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said at a February 11th press briefing at the White House.
And Vice President Kamala Harris said on Sunday: ‘The purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence.’
Meanwhile, Putin, in his own speech on Thursday, warned caution to ‘anyone who tries to interfere with us.’
He also reminded the world that Russia ‘remains one of the most powerful nuclear states’ with ‘a certain advantage in several cutting edge weapons.’
As part of its pressure campaign on the Kremlin, Biden said four more major banks in Russia would be subject to sanctions as will more Russian billionaires. The U.S. and its allies already targered some Russian financial insitutions and members of Putin’s inner circle.
Biden emphasized the international community was backing this effort.
‘We will limit Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds, and yen,’ he said. ‘Between our actions and those of our allies and partners, we estimate that we will cut off more than half of Russia’s high-tech imports. We will strike a blow through their ability to modernize their military.’
Specifically, the United States targeted Russia’s largest bank Sberbank, which holds nearly one-third of the overall Russian banking sector’s assets, and fully sanctioned Russia’s second largest bank VTB. Both institutions are now fully cut off from the U.S. financial system, which includes processing payments through the U.S. financial system.
The U.S. also cut off 13 major state-owned companies from raising money from the American market.
Families close to Putin were also targeted:
- Sergei Sergeevich Ivanov, a senior Russian official who became friends with Putin when they were in the KGB together
- Andrey Patrushev, a Russian business CEO and banking executive whose father Nikolai Platonovich Patrushev is the former head of Russia Federal Security Services
- Ivan Igorevich Sechin, who works closely with his father Igor Ivanovich Sechin, a Russian oligarch who is considered Putin’s de facto deputy
Russian financial executives were also targed:
- Alexander Aleksandrovich Vedyakhin, the First Deputy Chairman of Executive Board of Sberbank;
- Andrey Sergeyevich Puchkov and Yuriy Alekseyevich Soloviev, two high-ranking VTB Bank executives;
- and Soloviev’s wife Galina Olegovna Ulyutina
The sanctions notably did not target Russian energy companies, a major source of the nation’s wealth. But Biden and his fellow leaders have expressed concern about energy prices particularly as the cold weather lingers.
Biden also has been presented with a range of options for a cyber security attack on Russia that would hamper its ability to run the invasion. The options include cutting off Russia from the internet and shutting down the switches that control the railway system that is moving troops into position, NBC News reported.
The White House pushed back on the NBC report. Press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted: ‘This report on cyber options being presented to @POTUS is off base and does not reflect what is actually being discussed in any shape or form.’
Ukraine, meanwhile, demanded Russia be kicked out of the SWIFT banking system. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, is a cooperative of financial institutions formed in 1973. It acts as a secure messaging system that links more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories, alerting banks when transactions are going to occur. To throw Russia out would cut the country off from most international transactions.
Biden ruled it out, however.
‘Right now that’s not the position Europe wishes to take,’ Biden said. ‘The sanctions we imposed exceed SWIFT.’
In other major developments in the hours since Putin’s assault:
- Global markets tanked off the back of the invasion, with Russia’s ruble sliding to its lowest value ever and the price of oil shooting up to over $100 per barrel
- EU will freeze Russian assets, halt access to financial market and target ‘Kremlin interests’
- The Treasury Department announced sanctions against 24 Belarusian individuals and entities, including the defense minister, due to their ‘support for, and facilitation of’ Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- Central European countries started preparations to receive potentially hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the fighting in Ukraine
- UN Security Council will discuss a resolution condemning the invasion
- At least 57 people have died and 169 people have been injured, Ukrainian government says
- The U.S. expelled the No. 2 diplomat at the Russian embassy in Washington, DC, in response to Russia expelling the second-ranking U.S. diplomat in Moscow earlier this year
- European soccer’s governing body stripped St. Petersburg, Russia, from hosting the Champions League final, the biggest club game of the year, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- U.S. sending more military assets to Eastern Europe: Six F-35s will arrive in Estonia, Lithuania and Romania today — two to each country — the Pentagon said. Additionally, a group of attack helicopters ‘are on their way,’ a Pentagon official said, but noted there’s been ‘some weather issues’ to get them to their locations