The Biden administration announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian oligarchs and their family members who are supporting President Vladimir Putin.
Asked at the White House about the expanded sanctions, press secretary Jen Psaki said that the U.S. was confident that these measures were an effective approach.
President Joe Biden said Thursday afternoon that the sanctions already imposed on Putin and those around him have “had a profound impact.”
The new penalties include “full blocking sanctions” on at least eight so-called elites in the country and visa restrictions on 19 Russian oligarchs, their 47 family members and close associates, according to the Biden administration.
One of the elites targeted by the U.S. is Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, who was sanctioned earlier this week by the European Union, CNBC reported.
Less than an hour later, the United Kingdom unveiled its own set of sanctions on Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov, two of the oligarchs targeted by the U.S. Usmanov and Shuvalov are said to hold a combined wealth of $19 billion.
“In coordination with the U.S. and other allies, these measures amount to the largest set of financial sanctions in history,” U.K. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a press release.
The Biden administration said it is targeting visa access in an effort to respond to actions that are seen to “direct, authorize, fund, significantly support, or carry out malign activities in support of Russia’s destabilizing foreign policy.”
The Treasury Department will also designate “disinformation targets,” including seven Russian entities and 26 Russia- and Ukraine-based individuals, according to the White House.
“These individuals and their family members will be cut off from the U.S. financial system, their assets in the United States will be frozen and their property will be blocked from use,” the White House said in a fact sheet detailing the sanctions.
