The Biden administration will sanction President Vladimir Putin, ramping up pressure on the Russian leader as Moscow continues a deadly military assault on Ukraine.
President Joe Biden leveled new economic penalties on the Russian financial system and Kremlin elites and sanctioned the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 pipeline this week amid the invasion. But Putin has not yielded to the measures, putting pressure on Biden to go further.
Now, the president is poised to strike Putin personally, a rare financial clampdown on a foreign leader.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will also be targeted, Biden’s press secretary said Friday.
Jen Psaki said the decision was made over the last 24 hours in coordination with European allies and that the move would likely include a travel ban.
“There are very limited examples of this being done, as you all know, but that is a standard part,” she said.
Putin, by some counts, may be the richest man in the world, with a net worth that some estimate could exceed $200 billion.
The Russian president’s precise wealth is hard to estimate: According to official disclosures, the Russian leader earns an income of $140,000. However, Russian elites have long stashed their fortunes in opaque financial havens, with leaked records showing that people with close ties to Putin have amassed large overseas fortunes.
When asked about the effects of personal sanctions on Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Russian officials are prohibited from holding foreign bank accounts.
Peskov has previously called the possibility of direct sanctions against Putin “politically destructive” and similar to severing diplomatic ties.
The move follows an announcement by the European Union and the United Kingdom on Friday that they would freeze Putin’s assets and those of Lavrov. However, the countries did not impose a travel ban.
Switzerland told banks earlier in the day to freeze the assets of individuals on an EU sanctions blacklist to avoid being used to circumvent penalties on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. In 2020, Russians held some $11.21 billion in Switzerland, according to Swiss National Bank data.
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The Biden administration announced sweeping sanctions Thursday, targeting Russia’s largest banks, sovereign debt, and imposing new export controls on advanced technologies used in defense manufacturing and other sectors.
It also targeted members of Putin’s inner circle and their families in an effort to cut off avenues for Russian officials to hide their wealth.
