WASHINGTON — President Biden announced Friday that the US government will sanction another 500 people and companies to mark the anniversary of Russia’s two-year invasion of Ukraine and to punish the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“I’m announcing more than 500 new sanctions,” Biden said to applause from a gathering of the nation’s governors Friday morning at the White House.
The sanctions are a “response to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal war of conquest [and] in response to Alexei Navalny’s death — because make no mistake, Putin is responsible for Alexei’s death,” he said.
President Biden has announced a new onslaught of sanctions against Russia as the war in Ukraine enters it’s second year. AP“We in the United States are going to continue to ensure that Putin pays a price for his aggression abroad and repression at home,” the 81-year-old commander-in-chief added.
Not all observers believe the new sanctions will have much of an effect.
“This is reactionary. It is too little in response to the level of aggression and threats presented by the Russian federation,” said sanctions expert Yleem Poblete, who served as US assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance in the Trump administration.
“By the time the action has taken place, deterrence has failed,” said Poblete, who also is a former chief of staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“There isn’t a cohesive, integrated strategy that utilizes all instruments of US power and articulates the end game,” she added.
“When you’re not being clear as to the US interest and what the US red lines are on all of these, they are not as effective as they could be and that’s what’s lacking from the Biden administration. There is no clarity on what the objective is.”
Poblete expressed concern that focusing intensely on Navalny, whose precise cause of death has not yet been reported, also risks giving up US leverage to win freedom for Americans deemed unjustly detained in Russia, such as Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
“Biden congratulating himself for putting another round of sanctions on Russia ignores the fact that his own weakness on the world stage encouraged Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and other offenses in the first place,” said John Ullyot, National Security Spokesman under former President Donald Trump. “Biden needs to focus on holding himself and his team accountable rather than playing catch-up with further sanctions that clearly haven’t worked to date.”
Biden met Thursday in San Francisco with Navalny’s wife Yulia Navalnaya and daughter Dasha Navalnaya ahead of announcing the sanctions.
The president committed an embarrassing gaffe by referring to Yulia by the incorrect name “Yolanda” after their discussion.
Navalny’s widow is seen as a possible successor to her husband as Russia’s foremost democracy advocate.
In addition to the 500 people and entities targeted with financial sanctions to cut them off from the global banking system, the US will also impose new export restrictions on nearly 100 entities for providing support to Russia, Biden said in a written statement.
White House spokesman John Kirby said on a press call that “all told, the [US] has designated now more than 4,000 entities and individuals” in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The latest sanctions include three individuals allegedly involved in Navalny’s incarceration and more than two dozen alleged sanctions evaders in third countries, Kirby said.
Navalny, 47, felt unwell, collapsed and died after a walk at the Arctic prison where he was being held, the Russian government said Feb. 16.
The opposition leader previously survived a 2020 poisoning via a nerve agent that was believed to be a prior Kremlin plot.
The escalating sanctions follow Biden’s pre-war threat to Putin of devastating consequences were he to invade Ukraine.
“He’s never seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed if he moves,” Biden threatened at a press conference shortly before the invasion.
The sanctions come as Congress continues to debate additional aid to Ukraine.
Biden agreed Monday to House Speaker Mike Johnson‘s request to meet to discuss $60 billion in Senate-passed military aid to Kyiv, but a meeting has not yet been announced.
Johnson (R-La.) has declined to hold a House floor vote on the funds, citing concern about US goals in the conflict and safeguards against the money being misappropriated. Congress previously cleared $113 billion for Ukraine’s defense.
After announcing the new sanctions, Biden proceeded to attack former President Donald Trump in a Friday afternoon video release for comparing himself to Navalny due to his many legal problems.
“What’s he talking about?” Biden said in the tweeted video. “Navalny had courage — the courage to stand up to Putin. Trump has no courage. All Trump does is bow down to Putin.”
Trump, 77, is running against Biden in the November election despite facing up to 712 years and six months in prison if convicted in four criminal cases.
