The official said the broad package “would impose significant costs on Russia and send it further down the path of economic, financial and technological isolation”.
The new package of sanctions will ban all new investments in Russia, increase sanctions against financial institutions and state-owned enterprises in Russia, and sanction Russian government officials and members of their families.
The new package of sanctions will mark the latest escalation in efforts by the United States and its allies to impose costs on Russia for its invasion and, over time, cut off the critical economic sectors the country is using to wage the ongoing war. They also follow new revelations about new atrocities committed by Russian forces in northern Ukraine, with images of the atrocities committed in Bucha serving as an accelerator of ongoing discussions between the United States and its European allies to increase economic spending, officials said.
“These measures will worsen key instruments of Russian state power, inflict sharp and immediate economic damage on Russia and hold the Russian kleptocracy, which finances and supports Putin’s war, accountable,” the official said. “These measures will be taken in step with our allies and partners, demonstrating our determination and unity in imposing unprecedented costs on Russia for its war against Ukraine.
The official added: “We have already come to the conclusion that Russia has committed war crimes in Ukraine and the information from Bucha seems to show additional evidence of war crimes. And, as the President said, we will work with the world to ensure that there is full responsibility for these crimes. One of these tools is sanctions – and we are working intensively with our European allies for further sanctions. “
The expected sanctions come after the US Treasury Department announced that it would no longer allow Russia to repay its debt with dollars held in US banks. While Washington imposed sanctions on Russia’s central bank by freezing their foreign currency in US banks, the finance ministry had previously allowed Russia to use those reserves to pay off its debt.
This is a move that officials say will significantly increase the risk of default and undermine the central bank’s urgent efforts to stop the economic hemorrhage that immediately seized the Russian economy following the West’s response to the invasion.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, the United States and its allies have sanctioned hundreds of Russian elites and lawmakers, restricted the country’s access to Western technologies important to its defense and technology sectors, frozen about half of Russia’s foreign reserves and reduced exclusion. of specific Russian banks from the SWIFT banking network, among other steps. The United States has also banned imports of Russian oil, natural gas and other energy products.
Although the severity and speed of Western sanctions against Russia are unprecedented, key exceptions remain as US officials continue to monitor US and European supply chains and try to limit the impact of sanctions on Western economies struggling with record high levels of inflation.
CNN reported late last week that Russia is facing a deep recession and high inflation as sanctions push the country toward an increasingly closed economy, a change that U.S. officials believe the Kremlin will struggle to make as long as relied on the sale of raw materials to buy sophisticated equipment and consumer goods.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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