Putin will pay 'an even steeper price' for his war in Ukraine and the death of Alexei Navalny in Arctic gulag, says Biden as he imposes 500 new sanctions on Russia
- Biden announced hundreds of new sanctions targeting Russian industry today
Vladimir Putin will pay ‘an even steeper price’ for his war in Ukraine and the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny in a grisly Arctic penal colony last week, president Biden declared today as he slapped Russia with 500 new sanctions today.
‘These sanctions will target individuals connected to Navalny’s imprisonment as well as Russia’s financial sector, defense industrial base, procurement networks and sanctions evaders across multiple continents,’ Biden said in a bold statement on Friday.
The new restrictions were described as ‘crushing’ by a high-level State Department official on Thursday, who also claimed they would target officials ‘directly involved in Navalny’s death’. Moscow still denies involvement in the shock death last Friday.
The US will also impose new export restrictions on nearly 100 entities for providing support to Russia and take action to further reduce Russia’s energy revenues, Biden said in a statement.
‘They will ensure Putin pays an even steeper price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,’ the president said of the sanctions.
The announcement follows Biden’s emotional meeting with Alexei Navalny’s widow and daughter yesterday in California, following the shock death of the anti-corruption campaigner on February 16.
Joe Biden (C) meets with Yulia Navalnaya (R), widow of Alexei Navalny, who died last week in a Russian prison, and daughter Dasha Navalnaya (L) in San Francisco, California on Thursday
President Joe Biden hugs Navalny’s widow Yulia Navalnaya in San Francisco yesterday
The new economic effort comes as Russia makes its first gains in months on the battlefield in Ukraine, which has been forced to ration ammunition as a political impasse in Washington blocks new US military aid.
The latest sanctions will notably target the Mir credit card system, set up by Russia to avoid reliance on US-based networks.
The Treasury Department also said it was targeting investment funds and regional banks to hit “Russia’s core financial infrastructure.”
Other notable businesses include Russian transportation logistics company JSC SUEK, said to serve the Russian defense ministry, and specialty steel producer Mechel.
Others were in 3D printing, lubricants, as well as robotics and automation.
Biden added on Friday that he will be speaking soon about Russia with other G7 leaders as well as the heads of the European Union and NATO.
Russia called the new US sanctions ‘cynical’ interference ahead of the presidential election in March.
Biden was expected to speak on Saturday in a video conference with G7 leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy after imposing the sanctions.
The announcement comes after Biden spoke privately with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya in a suite at the Fairmont hotel in San Francisco on Thursday.
White House officials said he shared his condolences for the death of Putin’s top critic and opposition leader in a Siberian penal colony last week.
Biden hugged Yulia and promised that her late husband’s legacy would live on as Moscow ramped up its threats of nuclear attacks on the West.
The meeting came hours after Biden publicly called Putin a ‘crazy S.O.B.’ in the wake of Navalny’s death at the age of 47.
After the meeting Biden spoke briefly in the garage of the hotel as he got into his vehicle.
The president said: ‘He (Navalny) was a man of incredible courage. It’s amazing how his wife and daughter are emulating that.
‘We’ll be announcing the sanctions against Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow.
‘One thing Yulia made clear to me is that she’s going to continue to fight. We’re not letting up.’
Biden also wrote on X: ‘Today, I met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya – Aleksei Navalny’s loved ones – to express my condolences for their devastating loss.
‘Aleksei’s legacy of courage will live on in Yulia and Dasha and the countless people across Russia fighting for democracy and human rights.’
They met as Navalny’s mother Lyudmila Navalnaya revealed she had been taken to a secret morgue to see her son’s body.
She demanded that Kremlin officials give back ‘my son’s body immediately’ after investigators tried ‘blackmailing’ her into holding a ‘secret’ burial.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday that the new package would be unveiled this Friday. He declined to detail the sanctions or say how they would expand on the stringent sanctions that the US and its allies have already put on Russia in retaliation for its invasion of Ukraine.
‘Whatever story the Russian government decides to tell the world, it’s clear that President Putin and his government are responsible for Mr. Navalny’s death,’ Kirby said. ‘In response and at President Biden’s direction, we will be announcing a major sanctions package on Friday of this week to hold Russia accountable.’
The new sanctions will fall on the two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.
Navalny died in prison on Friday. His death, a month before Russia’s presidential election, shocked the world
Navalny and his wife Yulia after a rally in rain-soaked Moscow, Russia, on September 6, 2013
Navalny and his wife Yulia, posing for a photo in a hospital in Berlin, Germany. Navalny has posted the picture on September 15, 2020, with the caption ‘Hi, this is Navalny. I have been missing you. I still can’t do much, but yesterday I managed to breathe on my own for the entire day’
Navalny’s death, a month before Russia’s presidential election, shocked the world.
Russian authorities said that the cause of his death at age 47 is still unknown — and the results of any investigation are likely to be questioned abroad. Many Western leaders have already said they hold Putin responsible for the death.
Kirby said the US had not determined how Navalny had died, but insisted that the ultimate responsibility for the death of the Russian opposition leader lies with Putin.
‘Regardless of the scientific answer, Putin’s responsible for it,’ he said.
Navalny’s widow vowed on Monday to continue his fight against the Kremlin, while authorities denied his mother access to a morgue where his body is believed to be held after his death.
With her voice cracking at times in a video posted on social media, Navalnaya accused Putin of killing her husband in the remote prison and alleged that officials’ refusal to hand over the body to her mother-in-law was part of a cover-up.
Navalny’s death has deprived the Russian opposition of is most well-known and inspiring politician less than a month before an election that is all but certain to give Putin another six years in power.
It dealt a devastating blow to many Russians, who had seen Navalny as a rare hope for political change amid Putin’s unrelenting crackdown on the opposition.
He had been imprisoned since January 2021 when he returned to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from a nerve agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.
He received three prison terms since his arrest, on a number of charges he has rejected as politically motivated.
‘They are cowardly and meanly hiding his body, refusing to give it to his mother and lying miserably while waiting for the trace of’ poison to disappear, Navalnaya said, suggesting her husband might have been killed with a Novichok-style nerve agent.
Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gives a video message calling on Russian citizens to join her in the fight against Putin, on February 19, 2024
Biden has today announced more than 500 new sanctions against Russia for its war in Ukraine and the death of Alexei Navalny, the White House said
Meanwhile, Kirby also echoed the repeated calls from the White House for Congress to pass additional funding for aid to the Ukraine.
‘One of the most powerful things that we can do right now to stand up to Vladimir Putin, of course, is to again pass the bipartisan national security supplemental bill and support Ukraine as they continue to fight,’ he said on Tuesday.
The Senate passed a $60 billion in assistance for Ukraine, but House Speaker Mike Johnson is stalling action on that side of the Capitol.
Ukraine has suffered significant setbacks to Russian forces on the battlefield, which US officials have attributed to the lack of supplies for Ukrainian forces.
‘We need the supplemental funding. We absolutely have to have the supplemental funding to be able to continue to support Ukraine,’ Kirby said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said delays in military aid have made life ‘very difficult’ for his soldiers and said Russia is taking advantage of American in-fighting.
‘The situation is extremely difficult in several parts of the front line, where Russian troops have amassed maximum reserves,’ he said Monday in a nightly address.
Russians ‘are taking advantage of the delays in aid to Ukraine,’ he added.
Johnson has insisted he must first sit down with President Biden to discuss attaching border security to the deal. The House is currently on recess and does not return until the middle of next week.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said his message to Johnson was to ‘step up’ and hold the vote. He gave a closed door briefing to lawmakers on Capitol Hill last week about the situation in the Ukraine.
‘At this point we’ve got to match the basic words of support for our allies and partners with the action of putting this up for a vote. That’s the speaker’s obligation. That’s what he has to do. And he can’t shirk from that or hide from that. He’s got to step up and do it,’ Sullivan said Tuesday in a briefing with reporters.
‘There is no magic solution to this absence of Congress ought appropriating funding. It’s not like we have a piggy bank where we just keep cash lying around that we can provide to Ukraine.
‘We need the Congress to discharge its constitutional obligation to appropriate and obligate funds that the President can then put to use to send American made weapons made by American workers and American states to Ukraine.’
And Kirby indicated lawmakers should come back to Washington to pass the aid package.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan arrives for a briefing at the US Capitol on February 14
Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) greets President Joe Biden (right) during the US – Russia Summit 2021 at the La Grange Villa near Lake Geneva, on June 16, 2021
‘Whatever story the Russian government decides to tell the world, it’s clear that President Putin and his government are responsible for Mr. Navalny’s death,’ White House spokesman John Kirby said. ‘In response and at President Biden’s direction, we will be announcing a major sanctions package on Friday of this week to hold Russia accountable’
‘As we’ve said, he had sat down and discussed this with Speaker Johnson and other congressional leaders, including at the White House, several weeks ago the importance of this supplemental funding,’ he said. ‘The Speaker got exactly what he wanted and then decided that he didn’t want it.’
‘We’re at a critical time. And I believe that the President’s comments and willingness to have another conversation with the Speaker reflect the sense of urgency that we all know and believe we’re in and, frankly, we believe Congress should believe we’re in, instead of being on vacation,’ he added.
Some aid is on its way to Ukraine from other allies.
The European Union also announced today that it is imposing sanctions on several foreign companies over allegations that they have exported dual-use goods to Russia that could be used in its war against Ukraine.
The 27-nation bloc said that it was targeting scores of Russian officials, including ‘members of the judiciary, local politicians and people responsible for the illegal deportation and military re-education of Ukrainian children’.
The EU just approved some $54 billion for Ukraine earlier this month. Sweden on Tuesday announced its largest aid package yet and Canada said it was expediting the delivery of more than 800 drones.
Biden, meanwhile, tore into House Republicans for leaving town for nearly two weeks without approving aid.
‘It’s about time they step up — don’t you think? — instead of going on a two-week vacation,’ Biden said last Friday. ‘Two weeks they’re walking away. Two weeks. What are they thinking? My God, this is bizarre.’
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