The Biden administration has developed sanctions targeting allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, upping the financial penalties it will levy on Moscow if it invades Ukraine, though some argue the threat is merely a political maneuver.
The move comes as bipartisan lawmakers and activists have urged a tougher response to Russia’s troop buildup on Ukraine’s borders and as diplomatic talks show little progress.
“The individuals we’ve identified are in or near the inner circle of the Kremlin and play a role in government decision-making or at a minimum [are] complicit in the Kremlin’s destabilizing behavior,” press secretary Jen Psaki said. “Many of these individuals are particularly vulnerable targets because of their deep and financial ties with the West, meaning they would be hurt by sanctions that are tying them to Western financial systems.”
BIDEN’S SANCTIONS SOLUTION TO PUTIN’S UKRAINE THREAT FACES HURDLES
She called the move “one piece of our effort to hit Russia from all angles” in the event of an invasion and said the White House had coordinated with U.S. allies. Congress is also working on a bipartisan bill that would target Putin himself with sanctions, as well as his top officials.
While Psaki said nothing about targeting Putin directly, President Joe Biden said last month that he “would see” targeting Putin as an option.
Putin’s personal assets are not readily known — his official financial disclosure appears online but is limited in scope. However, Russian elites have long parked their fortunes in overseas havens. Viewed as proxies for Putin, a crackdown on their assets could be seen as hurting the Russian leader himself.
Some have called for immediate action.
Bill Browder, a London-based financier who has led a campaign against the Kremlin’s reach since the killing of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, said because Russian elites were so deeply entrenched in foreign financial capitals and systems, these countries now had added leverage.
“Because Britain has had such a permissive environment for dirty Russian money, Britain now has the most leverage when it comes to sanctioning people,” he said. “We can use this to our advantage now that the money is already here.”
But whether the focus on Kremlin-linked elites or even Putin would prove effective in deterring Russian military action in Ukraine isn’t clear.
While Western financial sanctions might sting, the Russian leader’s closest advisers would likely face their own deterrent pressures closer to home.
“Putin’s inner circle, the small group of people who are really decision-makers, they’ve all achieved their position because of Putin. So if the system is moving towards war, they can’t, for reasons of personal gain, be seen as opposing it,” said Michael Kimmage, a professor of history at the Catholic University of America and former State Department policy official focused on U.S.-Russia relations.
Sanctions levied nearly a decade ago when Putin invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014 did not stop Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It continues to hold the territory eight years later.
The White House has said it intends to go far beyond these measures, but experts are skeptical that sanctions in any form could prove significant in shifting Putin’s calculus, viewing these as political moves designed to show that Biden takes the threat of Russian incursion seriously.
“Politically, you have to act,” said a former National Security Council official who worked under the Obama administration. This person voiced skepticism while speaking to the Washington Examiner that even carefully targeted sanctions would work to dissuade Putin’s actions.
“We’ve done this before with zero results,” he said. “I don’t think these are going to change anything.”
Today, Russia’s foreign currency and gold reserves exceed $620 billion, suggesting that Putin is better prepared to weather the sweep of financial sanctions that the administration has discussed publicly.
Other deterrent measures outlined by the White House include plans to cut off Russia’s largest banks from the global financial system and restrictions on the export of advanced technologies used by Russian consumer and defense manufacturers.
Kimmage said the naming-and-shaming sanctions could still resonate politically, by showcasing the figures close to the Kremlin who have personal ties to the West, either through real estate holdings or with children enrolled at elite institutions.
“It’s hypocrisy, and so these sanctions underscore that hypocrisy, and that has a certain public relations media value,” he said.
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But he did not think it would alter Moscow’s trajectory.
“It’s not going to change Putin’s decision to go to war if that’s the decision he wants to make,” Kimmage said.
