The White House is imposing new sanctions on Russian oligarchs and people close to President Vladimir Putin in an attempt to level new pressure on Moscow to halt its attack on Ukraine.
The measures will bar a sweep of prominent Russian billionaires, business magnates, and Putin confidantes from the U.S. financial system, freezing their assets and property and blocking them from traveling to the United States. The crackdown will extend to their family members.
“Today I’m announcing that we’re adding dozens of names to the list, including one of Russia’s wealthiest billionaires, and I’m banning travel to America by more than 50 Russian oligarchs, their families, and their close associates,” President Joe Biden said Thursday. “And we’re going to continue to support Ukrainian people with direct assistance.”
The action will make attempts to evade the pain of broader U.S. economic sanctions increasingly difficult for wealthy Russian elites by cutting off their access to other assets and dealing them a personal financial blow.
BIDEN AIMS TO HIT WEALTHY RUSSIANS WHERE IT HURTS TO STOP WAR AGAINST UKRAINE
Biden’s press secretary said Thursday the goal is to ratchet up economic pain on people close to the Russian leader in an effort to shift his thinking.
“We look at one of the big factors is, of course, the proximity to President Putin. We want him to feel the squeeze, we want the people around him to feel the squeeze,” said press secretary Jen Psaki.
Full blocking sanctions will target Nikolai Tokarev, the CEO of Transneft, a state-controlled oil pipeline transport company; his wife Galina; daughter Mayya; Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov; billionaire mining executive Alisher Usmanov; construction magnates Boris and Arkady Rotenberg and their families; Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov and his wife Yekaterina, his son Stanislav, and stepdaughter Anastasiya; former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, his five companies, wife Olga, his son Evgeny and his company and jet, and his daughter Maria and her company; and Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a businessman known as “Putin’s chef” and one of 13 Russians charged by special counsel Robert Mueller for allegedly meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Visa restrictions will target 19 oligarchs and 47 family members and close associates, according to the administration.
The Treasury Department will also target seven Russian entities and more than two dozen people linked to the groups for their role in spreading disinformation related to the Ukraine invasion.
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Biden previewed the action earlier in the week, announcing in a joint session of Congress that the U.S. would go after wealthy Russians directly to “seize their yachts, their luxury apartments, their private jets.”
“Tonight, I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who built billions off this violent regime — no more,” Biden said. “We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.”
