Days after gruesome images of murdered civilians in the Bucha suburb of Kyiv surfaced, the White House announced that it would impose further sanctions on Russian entities and individuals, including a ban on American investments in Russia and sanctions on the families of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The latest round of punitive measures would be applied in concert with the EU and Group of Seven (G7) countries, the Biden administration announced.
The measures against Russia would include “full blocking sanctions” on Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank, and its largest private sector bank, Alfa Bank. No ‘U.S. Person’ (i.e., a resident entity or citizen) is permitted to transact with these banks and all their U.S. assets will be frozen.
President Joe Biden will also sign an executive order banning new investments in Russia by U.S. persons and the U.S. Treasury Department is expected to announce a ban on transactions by U.S. persons with a list of major Russian state-owned enterprises on Thursday. There will be a carve-out for energy sector enterprises. Europe is still heavily dependent on Russian energy imports.
Energy carve-outs
Also announced on Wednesday were full blocking sanctions on the adult children of Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov’s wife and daughters as well as Russian Security Council members — former President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and former Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
The White House also announced that carve-outs and exemptions would apply for humanitarian activities.
India is not directly impacted by this new set of sanctions as they are specific to the U.S., the EU and G7. A senior U.S. administration official said that while India is not part of the G7 — and is a guest country this year — the U.S. remained “hopeful” to have as much alignment with India as possible.
“India is not part of the G7. It’s a guest country this year. So, we will certainly collaborate with India and share the details of our measures and, of course, we remain hopeful that we can have alignment to the maximum extent possible,” the official said in response to a question from The Hindu on the links between these sanctions and India and also the level of alignment between the U.S. and India on sanctions.
U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser for International Economics Daleep Singh was in India last week with some tough words for New Delhi around potential alternative payment mechanisms with Russia that India is considering to facilitate oil purchases from Moscow. The comments were met with indignation. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said India would, keeping its national interests in mind, buy fuel at a discounted price, if there was an opportunity to.
This week, U.S. officials have been questioned on India’s participation in the U.S. sanctions regime and the impact of these sanctions, if India and China continue trade with Russia.
Core principles
Responding to The Hindu on Wednesday’s briefing call, the senior administration official said: “India is our friend, India’s our partner and we share interests and we share core principles that are at stake in this conflict and we’ve had extensive discussions about ways to further our cooperation on global food security, on global energy supplies, and certainly in terms of recognising that Putin’s brutality affects all of us and the geopolitical implications of Russia’s actions do have ripple effects.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, on Tuesday, had said the EU and G7 were joining the U.S. and this accounted for “about 50%” of the world economy, creating significant impact, while responding to a question on the effectiveness of this latest round of sanctions, given that some large economies like India, China and Brazil were not participating.
The U.S.’s “expectation” was that other countries would not only abide by the sanctions but also be a “constructive part” in holding Moscow accountable, Ms. Psaki said.
